Chat Control: European Parliament Restores ePrivacy Exception, but Protects End-to-End Encryption

Rejected in the spring, the extension of the temporary exemption to the ePrivacy Directive is back on the table, having been adopted yesterday by the European Parliament under rather unusual circumstances. MEPs, however, chose to limit its scope by excluding communications protected by end-to-end encryption, a move that may not sit well with the Council.

Yesterday, the European Parliament reopened a contentious issue that it had itself rejected in the spring… MEPs have in fact completed their second reading of the proposal to reinstate the temporary exemption from the ePrivacy Directive, which allows communication service providers to voluntarily detect child sexual abuse material in private messages. This exemption, introduced in 2021, expired…