EU lawmakers have again allowed tech firms to scan chats for abuse material, but exempted end-to-end encrypted messages.
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 voted to stop the law, and 276 supported it.
The vote advances reviving the “chat control” rules 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, passed an exemption 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, said its success was “a bittersweet victory.”
“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.
The vote on Thursday comes after the European Parliament voted through a rarely used urgent procedure 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 had rejected a temporary extension of the scheme while a new permanent version of the law, dubbed “Chat Control 2.0,” was under discussion, before 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 sc
小靓分析：
🦊 小靓解读
欧盟通过“聊天控制”法案，允许扫描私人聊天以打击儿童虐待内容，但豁免了端到端加密消息，这是隐私与监管博弈下的折中结果。短期看，加密社区情绪可能受挫，但实际影响有限。
📊 市场影响
该法案对加密货币市场直接影响较小，因为加密消息未被强制破解，但可能加剧对隐私币（如Monero）的监管关注。中期看，若类似法案扩散至其他地区，或引发DeFi和隐私协议的避险情绪。
💡 操作建议
建议关注隐私赛道（如XMR、ZEC）的短期波动，但避免追高。同时，留意欧盟后续对加密钱包和DeFi的监管动向，控制相关仓位风险。
风险提示：
该资讯来源于公开渠道，仅供参考。Traceless 无痕智盈平台不对此信息准确性做任何保证。