Upcoming Vote on Chat Control: New S&D, EPP, and Renew Deal is Worse Than Rejected Draft Report – AI Text Scanning and Mass Surveillance Set to Continue
Today at 12:30, the European Parliament will vote on whether to extend the so-called “Chat Control 1.0” (Interim Regulation) until August 2027. While a rejection of this mass surveillance is being proposed by the competent LIBE committee, a last-minute compromise negotiated by S&D, EPP, and Renew threatens to escalate the situation. Not only does it cement warrantless mass scanning, but it introduces highly experimental AI to scan private chat texts and unknown visuals.
The “Compromise” is an Escalation
While the previously rejected draft report at least excluded the most unreliable technologies, the new S&D, EPP, and Renew proposal is significantly worse.
It proposes that for accounts reported by users or “trusted flaggers”, where the report indicates a reasonable suspicion of CSAM, automated algorithms will be allowed to evaluate unknown visuals in private messages and even written chat texts. These secret algorithms are highly experimental, notoriously error-prone, and their deployment leaves massive democratic and legal questions completely unanswered:
- Big Tech as Judges: There is no requirement for a judge or even a human to authorize the scanning or assess if there is “reasonable suspicion.” Algorithms and private tech companies will decide who gets monitored.
- Abuse and Lack of Limits: What protects citizens from abusive user flags? For how long will a flagged account be monitored?Infinitely it seems.
- Undefined “Flaggers”: The text relies on vague terms like “trusted flaggers” or “organisations acting in the public interest” without defining who assigns this status or outlining sanctions for misuse.
- Technical Nonsense: The proposal claims text can be scanned “without deducing the substance” of it—which is technically impossible and logically absurd.
- No Redress: There is no requirement to notify users ex-post if their private chats were wrongly scanned, leaving no room for legal redress.
Mass Scanning To Be Legalised
The new deal also preserves the main target of civil society’s criticism: It continues to permit the warrantless, indiscriminate mass screening of every citizen’s private messages for “known material” (hash scanning).
While proponents dismiss this as a mere extension of the “voluntary” status quo, these “voluntary” scans threaten to become the de facto standard for all providers, or even a mandatory “risk mitigation” requirement under the Chat Control 2.0 (CSAR) regulation that is being negotiated as well.
Why mass hash-scanning remains completely unreliable and dangerous:
- Context & Intent Blindness: Algorithms are blind to context. What is illegal in the US (the source of most hash databases) is not automatically illegal in the EU. Furthermore, machines cannot read intent: Consensual teenage sexting or an unsolicited meme shared in a group chat triggers automatic police reports of all members of the chat group.
- Criminalization of Minors: Already today, 40% of all investigations in Germany target minors sharing images among themselves, not organized predator rings.
- Police Overload: The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) reports that nearly half of all flagged chats via US-based NCMEC are criminally irrelevant. Drowning investigators in a flood of junk data ties up resources desperately needed for targeted, undercover investigations against actual abusers.
- Failure to Protect: Searching only for already known images does not stop ongoing, live abuse, nor does it rescue children currently in active danger.
The “Legal Vacuum” Myth and the Lobbying Machine
In the last 24 hours, MEPs have been sent letters from the tech industry (DOT Europe) and certain child rights organizations (ECLAG) warning of a “legal uncertainty” if the proposal fails.
This narrative is false. Letting the Chat Control 1.0 regulation expire does not leave police “blind.” Providers can still scan public posts, hosted files, and rely on user reports. End-to-end encryption is becoming the industry standard anyway, rendering these scans technically obsolete.
Furthermore, the lobbying effort itself is highly questionable. The push for Chat Control is heavily driven by foreign-funded lobby groups and tech vendors. For example, the US-based organization Thorn—which sells the very scanning technology being proposed—spends hundreds of thousands of euros lobbying in Brussels. The tech industry and commercial vendors are officially lobbying side-by-side with NGOs, pushing for a law that guarantees their profits and data access, not child safety.
Statement by Patrick Breyer (Pirate Party):
“We are being sold a Trojan horse. The alleged ‘compromise’ by S&D, EPP, and Renew legalises the failed, indiscriminate mass surveillance of our private images and even escalates it: Allowing unaccountable AI algorithms to read our chat texts based on vague ‘flags’ without judicial oversight is a nightmare.The industry and foreign-funded lobbyists are trying to panic the Parliament with the myth of a ‘legal vacuum’. But flooding our police with false positives from mass surveillance does not save a single child—it only protects the profits of the tech companies selling the surveillance software. Real child protection requires secure apps (‘Security by Design’), mandatory takedowns, and targeted investigations against suspects with a judicial warrant. I urge all MEPs: Vote down the extension, and vote against any compromise that indiscriminately scans our private messages.”
Citizens can contact their representatives via: fightchatcontrol.eu
patrick-breyer.de/en/upcoming-…
🇪🇺 1/7 🌍 Foreign-funded lobby groups from outside the EU are pushing #ChatControl with misleading propaganda. They want to #PassTheLaw to scan your chats, but who are they and who's paying them? Let's expose the network.
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