The European Parliament has adopted Chat Control 1.0, a renewed regulation that allows major tech companies to voluntarily scan private messages of their users.
The content of the regulation itself has gotten major pushback from European citizens and politicians alike. However, the way it was adopted added even further ‘insult to injury’.
The European Council sent back the proposal to Parliament in late June, right before the beginning of the summer recess period, when many of the MEPs are already back in their home countries.
There, the rejection of the proposal was put up for a vote, not the proposal itself. The rejection did get a majority of the vote among the MEPs present. 314 out of the 607 representatives in session supported it, 276 opposed it, and 14 abstained.
However, the 314 votes for rejection fell short of the 361 majority of all sitting Members of the European Parliament needed to pass a proposal in its second reading, thus it was adopted and will be in effect until April 2028. In the meantime, lawmakers are in the process of negotiating the details of Chat Control 2.0, an updated version of the controversial regulation.
Left-Wing and Right-Wing MEPs Reject Chat Control 1.0
Chat Control 1.0’s main stated objective is to make it easier for law enforcement to detect child sex abuse material shared online. Despite the universally supported goal, its atrocious implementation and shadily forced adoption have drawn fierce opposition from both sides of the political spectrum.
One of the most vocal opponents of the regulation is Patrick Breyer, a former MEP for the progressive Piratenpartei Deutschland party in Germany. On the other end, Anders Vistisen, incumbent MEP for the Danish right-wing populist Dansk Folkeparti, a member of the Patriots for Europe group, is just as adamant in opposing the same bill. MEP Vistisen has claimed in the past that with the Chat Control regulation in effect, ‘essential freedom rights are now under attack from the EU’.
Svenja Hahn, the newly re-elected President of the liberal ALDE group in the European Parliament, has also come forth to criticize the regulation. She stated:
‘It’s a disgrace that the Chat Control instrument has passed in the European Parliament. It opens the door for mass surveillance of all private communication of our European citizens instead of the targeted fight against child sexual abuse as proposed by the Parliament. The surveillance of private chats pushed by EU states is a threat to our freedom and democracy. We need to continue fighting against Chat Control,’ as quoted by a piece on Euronews.com.
And the controversies around Chat Control 1.0 do not end there.
Finnish blockchain entrepreneur and digital rights activist Mikko Ohtamaa has shared on the social media platform X that a video of a discussion about Chat Control has been removed from the Finnish podcast channel Puheenaihe on YouTube.
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