The European Parliament has voted to advance a bill letting tech companies legally scan for child sexual abuse material. On Thursday in Strasbourg, lawmakers sent the proposal to EU member states for approval, Politico reports.
The twist is that Parliament rejected this same bill in March. It was revived after a push by the centre-right European People’s Party prompted EU capitals to restart negotiations.
The measure is a temporary fix, giving platforms the legal right to voluntarily scan for abuse material. That gap opened when an earlier exemption lapsed, and a separate, far more contentious permanent law, widely known as Chat Control, is still stuck in negotiations.
Opponents could not muster the 361 votes needed to kill it outright. Only 314 voted against, with 276 in favour and 17 abstaining, so the bill survived and moves on.
Lawmakers also attached an amendment exempting end-to-end encrypted services like WhatsApp and Signal from the scanning rules. That carve-out addresses a core fear, that mandated scanning could become a backdoor into encrypted messaging.
Both sides walked away unhappy
The compromise pleased almost no one. The EPP’s Lena Düpont wanted a “clear cut” return with no amendments, and said the group was not satisfied.
Liberal lawmaker Irena Joveva, who opposed the scanning regime and backed an amendment, said she was “deeply disappointed” the vote was forced at all. Tech lobby DOT Europe complained that the amendments, however well-intentioned, only delay a fix firms need.
Child-rights groups framed the stakes differently. ECLAG’s Nathalie Meurens said the vote was about closing a legal gap that “continues to put children at risk”, a case long made by those who warn the alternative leaves abuse undetected.
A procedure almost nobody understood
The path back to life was as contested as the bill. The Council revived it using a procedure that is technically official but almost never used, and which makes a law easier to pass than to block.
The plenary was raucous and confused, with members unsure what they were voting on. One reportedly approached a vice-president to say plainly: “We don’t know what we’re voting on.”
Top conservatives leaned in hard, with EPP chief Manfred Weber and four European commissioners pressuring lawmakers beforehand. The result leaned heavily on EPP votes, while liberal and social-democrat groups split.
The fight is far from over
The privacy stakes are why this file never dies quietly. Client-side and message scanning have alarmed security experts since Apple’s abandoned plan to scan every iPhone photo, and encryption defenders treat any weakening as a red line.
Signal’s president Meredith Whittaker, a fierce critic of backdoors, has said the app would quit the EU rather than break its encryption. The exemption added on Thursday is aimed squarely at that objection.
For now the temporary bill heads to member states, while the permanent regulation grinds on. The vote settled little except that Europe’s hardest privacy-versus-protection fight is still very much alive.
