EU Member States Agree on Temporary Rules to Monitor Private Chats for Child Protection
EU member states have reached a provisional agreement allowing messaging platforms to voluntarily scan private communications for child sexual abuse material, though encrypted messages remain exempt.
European Union member states have agreed to renew a temporary framework that permits messaging platforms to search for child sexual abuse material in users' private chats. The compromise bypasses certain EU data protection rules but does not apply to encrypted messages.
Under the new provisional rules, which still require written approval from member state governments by Thursday, the temporary arrangement will be valid until April 2028. During this period, the EU aims to develop a long-term solution for child protection online. The previous temporary agreement expired in April after the EU failed to finalize permanent legislation in time.
Companies such as Microsoft (Outlook), Google (Gmail), and Meta (Instagram) may voluntarily deploy software to automatically detect images or videos of child pornography. However, before reporting findings to law enforcement, companies must manually verify the flagged content to prevent false accusations due to software errors.
Unlike the earlier provisional agreement, the new rules no longer permit software installed on users' smartphones or computers to scan content before encryption and transmission. This means that fully encrypted services like WhatsApp and Signal will not be monitored.
Privacy advocates have long criticized such exemptions from data protection rules, arguing that comprehensive monitoring of private chats constitutes mass surveillance and does little to protect children. The European Commission proposed making such monitoring mandatory in 2022, but member states and the European Parliament remain deadlocked on permanent legislation.
The temporary framework is necessary while the EU continues negotiations on a permanent legal basis for online child protection.
