The European Parliament is considering another extension of Chat Control 1.0, the “temporary” exemption that allows communications providers to scan private messages (under the premise of preventing child abuse) despite the protections of the EU’s ePrivacy Directive.
A draft report presented by rapporteur Birgit Sippel (S&D) would prolong the derogation until April 3, 2027.
At first glance, the proposal appears to roll back some of the most controversial elements of Chat Control. Text message scanning and automated analysis of previously unknown images would be explicitly excluded. Supporters have framed this as a narrowing of scope.
However, the core mechanism of Chat Control remains untouched.
The draft continues to permit mass hash scanning of private communications for so-called “known” material.
According to former MEP and digital rights activist Patrick Breyer, approximately 99 percent of all reports generated under Chat Control 1.0 originate from hash-based detection.
Almost all of those reports come from a single company, Meta, which already limits its scanning to known material only. Under the new proposal, Meta’s practices would remain fully authorized.
As a result, the draft would not meaningfully reduce the volume, scope, or nature of surveillance. The machinery keeps running, with a few of its most visibly controversial attachments removed.
Hash scanning is often portrayed as precise and reliable. The evidence points in the opposite direction.
First, the technology is incapable of understanding context or intent. Hash databases are largely built using US legal definitions of illegality, which do not map cleanly onto the criminal law of EU Member States.
The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) reports that close to half of all chat control reports are criminally irrelevant.
Each false positive still requires assessment, documentation, and follow-up. Investigators are forced to triage noise rather than pursue complex cases involving production, coercion, and organized abuse.
The strategic weakness is compounded by a simple reality. Offenders adapt. As more services adopt end-to-end encryption, abusers migrate accordingly. Since 2022, the number of chat-based reports sent to police has fallen by roughly 50 percent, not because abuse has declined, but because scanning has become easier to evade.
“Both children and adults deserve a paradigm shift in online child protection, not token measures,” Breyer said in a statement to Reclaim The Net.
“Whether looking for ‘known’ or ‘unknown’ content, the principle remains: the post office cannot simply open and scan every letter at random. Searching only for known images fails to stop ongoing abuse or rescue victims.”
Hellbound and Down 