BRUSSELS: Efforts by the European Union to extend voluntary monitoring of private online communications by major tech platforms to combat child sexual abuse material have failed.
Negotiators from EU member states and the European Parliament were unable to reach a compromise, a spokeswoman for the Cypriot presidency of the Council of the European Union said on Monday.
She warned that the deadlock would leave a gap in the legislation, as the current regulation, known as "chat monitoring," expires on April 3.
"Today’s development creates a vacuum which, despite our efforts, will have repercussions on the ability to save victims of this horrendous crime and to bring perpetrators to justice," she said.
The temporary exemption from European data protection rules has so far allowed messaging services such as WhatsApp and platforms including Instagram and LinkedIn to scan message histories in order to detect and report child sexual abuse material, mainly images and videos.
Tech companies such as Google and Microsoft are also making use of this temporary regulation.
Long-term solution sought
The EU is seeking a long-term legal framework to better protect children online. To buy time for negotiations, the European Commission had proposed extending the temporary exemption.
In 2022, the commission originally proposed making such monitoring mandatory for platforms. The proposal met resistance from Germany.
Under the plan, chats would have been automatically scanned to detect messages containing child sexual abuse material and report them to law enforcement authorities.
EU member states instead supported continuing the current system of voluntary monitoring by apps and online platforms. Under their proposal, the exemption from data protection rules would have been made permanent, with the commission reviewing after three years whether mandatory monitoring should be introduced.
Parliament wanted a time limit and restrictions
Lawmakers in the European Parliament last week backed a different approach, proposing to extend the rules only until August 3, 2027.
Their proposal also aimed to significantly limit monitoring by allowing checks only on users identified as suspects by judicial authorities, rather than scanning messages more broadly.
In addition, lawmakers wanted the system to focus on material already flagged as potential abuse content by law enforcement agencies.
Negotiators ultimately failed to bridge the differences between the two sides. – dpa
