EU states agree on temporary exception for chat control

The formal decision by the EU states still has to be made in a written procedure, which is expected to be completed on Thursday afternoon. Negotiations on the legal text between the Council and the European Parliament are meanwhile continuing; new rules can only enter into force once both institutions have agreed on a long-term solution.

At the center is the so-called chat control, with which the EU fundamentally wants to determine what online services may or must do in the fight against abuse depictions. Pressure to reintroduce the exception that expired in April came from the CDU/CSU group (EPP) in the European Parliament as well as from Germany and other member states.

Role of Metsola and criticism

Friedrich Merz (CDU), Alexander Dobrindt (CSU), and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) had criticized the lack of a legal basis for the scans. Dobrindt and the BKA had also advocated for a swift solution, as investigations would be made more difficult without the exception.

In mid-June, EU Parliament President and EPP politician Roberta Metsola then surprisingly gave the debate a new direction when she advocated at the EU summit for working again toward a political agreement on a transitional solution. The fact that Metsola ventured this move drew much criticism.

Because the members of the European Parliament had actually formally given the President a different mandate in the vote in March: She was to communicate Parliament's rejecting position to the EU Commission and the Council, together with the request that the Commission withdraw the legislative proposal.

In a vote more than three months ago, the members had in turn themselves again insisted by a majority on the position of not supporting an unconditional extension of the exception. To stop the project, an absolute majority among the members would now have been required because of the renewed vote.

Restrictions and data protection

In addition to the EPP, the European Social Democrats this time also voted by a majority in favor of the extension. The EPP group had filed an urgent motion so that a vote on the rules could still take place in the last session before the summer break.

The solution now found contains significant restrictions compared to the original proposal of the member states. In particular, "client-side scanning" is ruled out. In this process, software on the smartphone or computer checks the content of messages, photos, and videos directly, before they are encrypted and sent.

However, the regulation is explicitly not to enable breaking end-to-end encryption, which has meanwhile become standard for WhatsApp, Signal, and others. In addition, the restriction also applies to messages that are still to be encrypted, so that automated scanning on end devices remains limited.

Reactions and outlook

The checks are voluntary. Data protection advocates, on the other hand, have been trying for years to prevent the discussed project and describe the possibility of mass scanning as blanket suspicionless mass surveillance, ineffective in protecting children. After the transitional regulation that applied until April, this was still permitted.

The EU states now want to agree to the restrictions demanded by Parliament. This is intended to reactivate a transitional arrangement until April 2028, the extension of which was already considered failed in Brussels.