DeFi

The European Parliament has passed legislation allowing tech firms to scan messages for child sexual abuse material until 2028, a controversial law dubbed “chat control” by critics.
EU lawmakers on Thursday largely voted against extending the regulation, dubbed “Chat Control 1.0,” but stopping it required 361 lawmakers to reject it. Only 314 <a href="https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/195775" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">voted</a> to stop the law, and 276 supported it.
The vote advances reviving the “chat control” rule that expired in April, and has been a controversial topic among privacy and cryptography advocates, as the originally designed law breaks the principle behind encrypting messages.
Parliament, however, <a href="https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/195778" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">passed</a> an <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-10-2026-0266_EN.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">exemption</a>&nbsp;to exclude “communications to which end-to-end encryption is, has been or will be applied," handing a small win to cypherpunks.
Pirate Party MEP Markéta Gregorová, whose party put forward the amendment to exempt end-to-end encrypted messages, <a href="https://www.greens-efa.eu/en/article/press/chatcontrol-return-a-dangerous-precedent-for-democracy-and-privacy" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">said</a> its success was “a bittersweet victory.”&nbsp;
“Protecting encryption was one of our priorities, and I am therefore glad that we managed to secure an absolute majority for an amendment that at least preserves encryption. At the same time, however, voluntary mass scanning unfortunately passed,” she said.
The law’s supporters argue it is vital to protect children and combat the spread of abusive material.
The parliament's laws with amendments will be sent back to the Council of the EU, a body of ministers from the bloc’s member nations who will approve or reject the legislation.
<h2 id="chat-control-battle-just-getting-started">Chat Control battle “just getting started”</h2>
The vote on Thursday comes after the European Parliament <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/eu-to-again-vote-to-extend-chat-control-rules" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">voted through a rarely used urgent procedure</a> on Tuesday that brought lawmakers back to vote on whether to extend a legal framework for the laws that expired in April.
Since the framework expired, messaging platforms such as WhatsApp have been allowed to take their own voluntary measures to seek out those sharing abusive material.
In March, Parliament rejected a temporary extension of the regulation while a permanent version of the law, dubbed “Chat Control 2.0,” was under discussion; the European People's Party, the largest group in Parliament, revived the extension in the urgent procedure vote on Tuesday.
The party had largely voted against extending the laws in March because of amendments that restricted the scope of scans, but its leader, Manfred Weber, has been looking for ways to push through the extension without changes.
Related: <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/eu-committee-digital-euro-cbdc-bill-key-vote" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">EU committee advances digital euro bill after key vote</a>
Breyer, the former MEP, said the “political battle over the permanent ‘Chat Control 2.0’ is just getting started.”
“The resistance we saw in Parliament today was so strong that finding a majority for permanent, suspicionless mass scanning in future negotiations is a complete pipe dream,” he said.
Negotiations for the permanent law, or “Chat Control 2.0,” will resume in September, with lawmakers disputing whether message scanning should be targeted or applied broadly.
Features: <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/features/crypto-industry-stablecoins-defi-mica" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Crypto industry looks to stablecoins and DeFi revisions in MiCA 2.0</a>

EU parliament passes ‘chat control,’ allowing private chat scans until 2028

Table of Contents

Cointelegraph

Other articles published on Jul 10, 2026

Join our free newsletter for daily crypto updates!