A law allowing scanning of online communications to detect child sexual abuse material was amended by MEPs to protect users’ privacy. The new version could create a clash with member states.
The European Parliament adopted on Thursday amendments excluding the likes of WhatsApp from a controversial temporary regime that allows electronic communication services to put voluntary measures in place to detect child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
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MEPs want to exclude communication services applying end-to-end encryption from the scope of the law, meaning that platforms such as WhatsApp and Messenger will no longer be able to take voluntary measures derogating from EU e-privacy rules to identify users suspected of sharing CSAM.
End-to-end encryption is a technology to secure electronic communications in such a way that only the receiver and the sender can decode the content of the messages.
The temporary regime has been dubbed "chat control" by its critics due to its privacy implications, while its supporters consider it crucial to protect minors' rights and combat the dissemination of child pornography.
While a long-term legal framework is currently being discussed, the European Commission proposed a temporary extension of the scheme until 2028, which has to be approved by Parliament and EU countries.
In March, the Parliament voted against extending the derogation, leading to its expiration on 3 April. However, the proposal was put back on the table as EU governments moved ahead with it, upon insistence from Parliament President Roberta Metsola.
The centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) had orchestrated a political manoeuvre to get the scheme’s extension approved without any changes under a not frequently used parliamentary procedure, which requires an absolute majority – at least 361 MEPs – to reject or amend a bill.
However, a majority of MEPs voted in favour of significant amendments that drastically restrict the scope of the scheme and could not be accepted by EU governments.
The vote on the amendments was extremely tight and showed a deep split among the Parliament’s political groups and internal fractures within some of them.
However, the two disputed amendments were approved with respectively 369 and 362 votes. An unusual alignment of liberal, radical left and far-right parties supported the changes, outnumbering the two largest political forces, the EPP and the centre-left Socialists and Democrats.
Many Socialist MEPs, including the German rapporteur for the file Birgit Sippel, voted in favour of the amendments, playing a decisive role in their adoption.