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.
