EU Parliament approves chat scanning after controversial second vote

The European Parliament has approved an extension of temporary rules allowing online platforms to continue voluntarily scanning unencrypted user communications for known child sexual abuse material until April 2028, following a procedural move that drew criticism from across the political spectrum. The legislation extends the EU's temporary ePrivacy derogation, first introduced in 2021, which allows companies including Meta and Google to detect and report known child sexual abuse material in communications that are not protected by end-to-end encryption.