Historic Chat Control Vote in the EU Parliament: MEPs Vote to End Untargeted Mass Scanning of Private Chats
In a sensational turn of events in the fight against Chat Control, a majority in the European Parliament voted today to end the untargeted mass scanning of private communications. In doing so, the Parliament firmly rejected the error-prone and unconstitutional surveillance practices of recent years. Pressure is now mounting on EU governments to respect the MEPs’ vote and bury untargeted mass surveillance in Europe once and for all.
Amendment 5, tabled by Pirate Party MEP Markéta Gregorová (Greens/EFA group) and adopted by a narrow margin, demands that any scanning of private communications must be strictly limited to individual users or groups of users suspected by a competent judicial authority of being linked to child sexual abuse. This aligns with the European Parliament’s 2023 mandate on the permanent Chat Control regulation (CSAR).
Based on today’s mandate, trilogue negotiations between the EU Parliament, the European Commission, and the Council of the EU are set to begin as early as tomorrow. Negotiations are taking place under extreme time pressure, as the current interim regulation authorizing Chat Control expires on April 6. The EU Commission and the vast majority of the EU Council—except for Italy—have so far categorically rejected any restrictions on untargeted mass scanning.
Digital freedom fighter Patrick Breyer (Pirate Party) commented on the historic vote:
“Today is a sensational victory for the countless citizens who made calls and sent emails to save their digital privacy of correspondence. Digital privacy is alive! Just as with our physical mail, the warrantless screening of our digital communications must remain taboo. EU governments must finally realize that true child protection requires secure apps (‘Security by Design’), the removal of illegal material at the source, and targeted investigations against suspects with a judicial warrant—not overreaching, pointless mass surveillance.”
The Hard Facts: Why Chat Control has failed spectacularly
The push by EU governments to make “Chat Control 1.0” a permanent fixture is legally and ethically negligent. The track record of the previous “voluntary” Chat Control—which the Parliament now intends to replace with targeted investigations—is disastrous. The EU Commission’s own evaluation report reads like an admission of bankruptcy, revealing a highly dysfunctional surveillance model:
- Data Giant Monopoly: Around 99% of all chat reports sent to police in Europe come from a single US corporation: Meta. US tech giants are acting as private auxiliary police forces—without any effective European oversight.
- Massive Police Overload due to Junk Data: Algorithms are blind to context and intent. The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) reports that, out of roughly 300,000 chats reported annually in the EU, an unbelievable 48% of the disclosed chats are false positives and criminally irrelevant. This flood of junk data ties up resources desperately needed for targeted, undercover investigations against actual abuse networks.
- Criminalization of Minors: In Germany, 40% of investigations already target minors who thoughtlessly share images (e.g., consensual sexting), rather than organized predators.
- An Obsolete Model due to Encryption: Perpetrators can easily migrate to encrypted messengers where Chat Control does not take place. Because providers are increasingly adopting end-to-end encryption for private messages, the number of chats reported to the police has already dropped by 50% since 2022. Instead of investing in targeted investigative work, the EU Council is clinging to a dying surveillance model.
- Reversal of the Burden of Proof: According to the Commission’s report, there is no measurable link between the mass surveillance of private messages and actual convictions. Yet, the Commission and the Council are demanding the extension of a measure whose effectiveness they cannot prove, while providers admit to error rates of up to 20%.
- Failure to Protect Children: Mass scanning for already known images does not stop ongoing, live abuse and does not rescue children currently in active danger.
The Myth of the “Legal Vacuum” and the Exposed Lobbying Machine
In the run-up to the vote, MEPs were heavily pressured by the tech industry (DOT Europe) and certain child rights organizations (ECLAG) with joint warnings of an impending “legal vacuum.”
This narrative is false. Letting untargeted Chat Control expire does not leave the police “blind.” Scanning public posts and hosted files, as well as user-based reporting, remain fully permitted without restriction. Furthermore, the massive and highly questionable lobbying efforts have been exposed: The push for Chat Control is heavily driven by foreign-funded lobby groups and tech vendors. The US-based organization Thorn, which literally sells the exact scanning software in question, spends hundreds of thousands of euros lobbying in Brussels. The tech industry has officially lobbied side-by-side with NGOs for a law that ensures their profits and data access, rather than protecting children.
Patrick Breyer concludes:
“The industry and foreign-funded lobby groups tried until the very last minute to panic the Parliament. But flooding our police with false positives from mass surveillance does not save a single child from abuse. Today’s vote is a clear stop sign for this surveillance obsession. The negotiators cannot ignore this mandate in tomorrow’s trilogue negotiations. The untargeted scanning of our private messages must finally become a thing of the past.”