Child pornography: EU Parliament votes against “chat control”

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Child pornography: EU Parliament votes against “chat control”

In the fight against child pornography, messenger services are allowed to voluntarily search chats due to an exception – until now. After a vote by the EU Parliament, the rule will expire at the beginning of April.

A final attempt to maintain the current system in the fight against child sexual abuse on the Internet has failed. A majority of members of the European Parliament rejected the extension of the voluntary control of chats by online platforms such as Instagram or LinkedIn in a vote in Brussels. Parliamentarians wanted stricter conditions for exemption from European data protection rules. The transitional regulation now expires on April 4th.

The exception to European data protection rules, which is limited until Friday next week, has so far allowed services and companies such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Microsoft and Google to scan message histories in order to detect and report prohibited depictions of child sexual abuse. This is mainly about images and videos. Data protection advocates criticize the possibility of comprehensive scanning.

In order to protect minors, the extension was vehemently demanded by several parties. Large tech companies such as Meta, TikTok and Snapchat pointed out that otherwise fewer cases of child abuse could be discovered. According to the President of the Federal Criminal Police Office, Holger Münch, the abolition of the regulation will have “serious negative effects on the possibilities of criminally prosecuting child and youth pornography content on the Internet.”

Basically, the EU wants to find a long-term solution for legal requirements to protect children on the Internet. However, the Council of EU states and the European Parliament still have to negotiate the text of the law. Only when both institutions reach an agreement can the new rules come into force. “We hope to reach an agreement with Parliament as quickly as possible in order to limit the negative effects caused by the legal loophole,” said a spokeswoman for the Cyprus Council Presidency.

The EU Commission originally proposed making the controls mandatory in 2022. This also failed due to resistance from the German federal government. Instead, the EU states rely on voluntary controls through the apps and platforms, as provided for in the transitional regulation, which is now expiring.

In order not to be left completely without regulation during the ongoing negotiations, the EU Commission had proposed an extension of the transitional regulation. In a vote two weeks ago, Parliament voted in favor of it – but under conditions. For example, controls should be limited to only checking material that is already known. However, Parliament’s subsequent negotiations with EU states on the project failed. With the current rejection, there is no longer any prospect of a last-minute agreement. 311 MPs voted against, 228 for and 92 abstained.