On Thursday 26 March, the European Parliament definitively rejected (311 votes against, 228 in favour and 92 abstentions) the extension of the ePrivacy Directive derogation, confirming the expiry on 3 April of the legal framework for the voluntary detection of online child sexual abuse material.
EPP attempts to relaunch negotiations. Following the failure of negotiations with the Council of the EU the previous week (see EUROPE 13829/19), the file was nevertheless kept on the plenary agenda. The day before, a majority of MEPs had refused to withdraw it, forcing a vote on a position that had become obsolete due to the lack of an interinstitutional agreement.
The European People’s Party (EPP) had launched a final offensive by tabling amendment 29, in order to align Parliament’s position with that of the EU Council’s and try to save the derogation system. But the cross-adoption of other contradictory amendments rendered the final text incoherent, leading to its massive rejection in the final vote. For several weeks now, the European Parliament has maintained its red line: scanning must be limited to known content and suspect profiles, in order to protect personal data.
Concern at the European Commission. A sign of the urgency of the situation: on the eve of the vote, four European Commissioners (Henna Virkkunen, Michael McGrath, Magnus Brunner and Glenn Micallef) even sent a letter to the presidents of several political groups, urging them to act “before it’s too late”.
They warned that failure to reach an agreement would lead to “reduced detection” and “greater impunity for perpetrators” of child sexual abuse, pointing out, moreover, that European servers host the largest amount of child sexual abuse material in the world.
Decision to go ahead with the vote criticised. Shadow rapporteur Markéta Gregorová (Greens/EFA, Czech) criticised the EPP’s attempt to reverse a decision that had already been taken, denouncing in a press release “procedural tricks” to keep “indiscriminate mass surveillance on the table”. For her, “reopening the file sends a dangerous signal that democratic decisions can be overturned if governments simply wait long enough”.
With this rejection, platforms such as Google, Meta and TikTok will be forced to suspend their automatic detection tools or risk violating the ePrivacy Directive as of next month. Parliament has now exhausted its remedies to avoid a legal vacuum. (Original version in French by Justine Manaud)