EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

欧盟议会批准“聊天控制 1.0”法案

Today, the European Parliament allowed the suspicionless mass scanning of private communications (“Chat Control 1.0”) to pass, a measure it had rejected twice in March. Although a majority of voting Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) actually opposed the regulation (314 against, 276 in favor, 17 abstentions), the motion to reject it failed to secure the required absolute majority of 361 votes. As a result, mass scanning is now permitted again until 2028. A symbolic exemption was adopted for encrypted communications—though in practice, service providers do not scan these anyway.

今天，欧洲议会批准了对私人通讯进行无差别大规模扫描的措施（即“聊天控制 1.0”），该措施此前曾在三月份两次被否决。尽管大多数投票的欧洲议会议员（MEPs）实际上反对该法规（314票反对，276票赞成，17票弃权），但由于未能达到所需的361票绝对多数，否决该动议的尝试宣告失败。因此，大规模扫描措施现已获准恢复，并将持续至2028年。虽然法案中针对加密通讯设立了一个象征性的豁免条款，但实际上，服务提供商本身就不会对这些内容进行扫描。

Furthermore, while a majority of voting MEPs wanted to restrict the scanning of private communications strictly to suspects identified by the judiciary (322 to 255 votes), this amendment likewise fell short of the required absolute majority. Dr. Patrick Breyer, civil rights activist and former Member of the European Parliament (MEP), warns of the consequences: “The fact that Chat Control is moving forward against the will of the majority of voting MEPs is a farce and damages democracy. Our children are the real losers in this undemocratic process. The passage of a genuine, permanent child protection regulation is now in serious jeopardy. The Council will never agree to a desperately needed paradigm shift as long as they can simply stick to the old approach of suspicionless scanning at the whim of the tech industry.”

此外，尽管大多数投票议员希望将私人通讯的扫描范围严格限制在司法机关认定的嫌疑人范围内（322票对255票），但该修正案同样未能达到所需的绝对多数。民权活动家、前欧洲议会议员帕特里克·布雷耶（Dr. Patrick Breyer）博士对后果发出警告：“聊天控制法案在违背多数投票议员意愿的情况下强行推进，这是一场闹剧，损害了民主。我们的孩子才是这场不民主进程中真正的受害者。制定一项真正且永久的儿童保护法规现在面临严重威胁。只要欧盟理事会能够继续沿用这种听任科技行业摆布的无差别扫描旧模式，他们就永远不会同意进行急需的范式转变。”

Despite the legislative defeat, Breyer remains defiant regarding the upcoming negotiations: “Today’s vote on the interim regulation was a setback, but the political battle over the permanent ‘Chat Control 2.0’ is just getting started. The resistance we saw in Parliament today was so strong that finding a majority for permanent, suspicionless mass scanning in future negotiations is a complete pipe dream.”

尽管在立法上遭遇挫败，布雷耶对即将到来的谈判依然态度强硬：“今天关于临时法规的投票是一次挫折，但围绕永久性‘聊天控制 2.0’的政治斗争才刚刚开始。我们今天在议会中看到的阻力非常强大，在未来的谈判中想要为永久性的无差别大规模扫描争取到多数支持，完全是痴人说梦。”

Breyer fundamentally rejects the mass surveillance approach: “Trying to protect children with suspicionless mass surveillance is like frantically mopping the floor while the faucet is still running. Blanket chat control is just as unacceptable as indiscriminately opening everyone’s physical mail. For five years, this failed system has served as a smokescreen to delay real action, all while overwhelming the police with false alarms. We need more child protection, not less—but we need effective protection, not the illusion of security.”

布雷耶从根本上反对这种大规模监控手段：“试图通过无差别的大规模监控来保护儿童，就像在水龙头没关的情况下疯狂拖地一样。全面聊天控制与无差别拆阅每个人的实体信件一样不可接受。五年来，这个失败的系统一直被用作掩盖真相的烟雾弹，以推迟采取真正的行动，同时还用虚假警报让警方不堪重负。我们需要更多的儿童保护，而不是更少——但我们需要的是有效的保护，而不是安全感的幻觉。”

What happens next?

接下来会发生什么？

The interim regulation passed today will remain in effect until 2028, or until an agreement on a permanent regulation is reached. Negotiations for the permanent law will resume in September. The core dispute between the EU Parliament, member state governments, and the EU Commission remains the scanning of private chats: should it be indiscriminate, or targeted at criminal suspects?

今天通过的临时法规将持续有效至2028年，或者直到就永久性法规达成协议为止。永久性法律的谈判将于九月恢复。欧洲议会、成员国政府与欧盟委员会之间的核心争议依然在于私人聊天扫描问题：扫描应该是无差别的，还是针对犯罪嫌疑人的？

What changes with the return of Chat Control 1.0—and what stays the same:

“聊天控制 1.0”回归后，哪些变了，哪些没变：

What is coming back: US tech companies are once again allowed to scan private messages without a warrant or prior suspicion. This affects direct messages on platforms like Instagram, Discord, Snapchat, Skype, and Xbox, as well as emails via Google’s Gmail and Apple’s iCloud.

哪些回归了： 美国科技公司再次被允许在没有搜查令或预先怀疑的情况下扫描私人信息。这影响到 Instagram、Discord、Snapchat、Skype 和 Xbox 等平台上的私信，以及通过 Google Gmail 和 Apple iCloud 发送的电子邮件。

What remains unchanged: Public social media posts and files hosted in cloud storage could already be scanned without this law. Furthermore, private messages can always be reported by users, or monitored by authorities using targeted, court-ordered wiretapping.

哪些保持不变： 公开的社交媒体帖子和托管在云存储中的文件在没有该法律的情况下也早已可以被扫描。此外，私人信息始终可以由用户举报，或由当局通过法院授权的定向窃听进行监控。

What is still NOT being scanned: End-to-end encrypted chats, such as those on WhatsApp, have always been exempt from these scans. Additionally, European providers of messaging and email services have never implemented chat control measures.

哪些依然不会被扫描： 端到端加密的聊天记录（如 WhatsApp 上的聊天）一直都在这些扫描的豁免范围内。此外，欧洲的通讯和电子邮件服务提供商从未实施过聊天控制措施。

Why Chat Control is the wrong approach:

为什么“聊天控制”是错误的方法：

Since 2022, the volume of suspected abuse reports from the US has already dropped by 50 percent due to the growing use of message encryption. According to EU Commission figures, mass scanning of private chats accounted for only 36 percent of all abuse reports in 2024 (the majority came from public posts and cloud storage). The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) reports that 48 percent of all incoming alerts are not criminally relevant in the first place. Crime statistics reveal that 40 percent of the resulting investigations actually target minors themselves. Under the chat control system, an estimated 99 percent of reports generated by Meta consist of previously known material, which generally does little to stop ongoing, active abuse. The EU Commission admits there is no evidence that suspicionless scanning of private communications has led to an increase in criminal convictions or in rescued children. Talk of averting a “protection gap” is therefore highly misleading. The most effective law enforcement tools—court-ordered wiretaps, user reports, and the scanning of public platforms and cloud storage—were never at risk and remain fully intact. The only practice that was temporarily banned since April was the indiscriminate, warrantless searching of private, unencrypted messages of innocent people on a handful of US platforms.

自2022年以来，由于消息加密技术的普及，来自美国的疑似虐待报告数量已经下降了50%。根据欧盟委员会的数据，2024年所有虐待报告中，私人聊天的大规模扫描仅占36%（大部分来自公开帖子和云存储）。德国联邦刑事调查局（BKA）报告称，48%的传入警报最初并不具备刑事相关性。犯罪统计数据显示，由此产生的调查中，有40%实际上是针对未成年人本身的。在聊天控制系统下，据估计 Meta 生成的报告中99%都是已知材料，这通常对阻止正在进行的、活跃的虐待行为几乎没有帮助。欧盟委员会承认，没有证据表明对私人通讯进行无差别扫描能增加刑事定罪数量或挽救更多儿童。因此，所谓“避免保护缺口”的说法具有极大的误导性。最有效的执法工具——法院授权的窃听、用户举报以及对公共平台和云存储的扫描——从未受到威胁，且依然完好无损。自四月份以来唯一被暂时禁止的做法，是针对少数美国平台上无辜民众的私人、未加密信息的无差别、无搜查令搜索。

Background: The deadlock over a permanent solution

背景：关于永久解决方案的僵局

In parallel, negotiations are ongoing for a permanent regulation to protect children from sexualized online violence (the “CSAM Regulation” or “Chat Control 2.0”). In these talks, the EU Parliament is pushing for a paradigm shift in how we approach online child safety, demanding:

• Mandatory, targeted detection orders against actual criminal suspects, rather than blanket mass scanning left to the tech industry’s discretion.
• An EU Child Protection Centre tasked with the systematic removal of known abuse material from the public internet.
• Strict security standards for messaging apps (“Security by Design”) to prevent cyber grooming.

与此同时，关于保护儿童免受网络性暴力侵害的永久性法规（即“CSAM 法规”或“聊天控制 2.0”）的谈判正在进行中。在这些谈判中，欧洲议会正在推动网络儿童安全方法的范式转变，要求：

• 针对实际犯罪嫌疑人进行强制性的定向检测，而不是将全面大规模扫描留给科技行业自行决定。
• 建立一个欧盟儿童保护中心，负责从公共互联网上系统性地删除已知的虐待材料。
• 为通讯应用制定严格的安全标准（“设计即安全”），以防止网络诱拐。

This permanent legislation has stalled because EU member states insist on maintaining the outdated approach of voluntary, suspicionless scanning of private communications. Critics warn that repeatedly extending the interim rules removes the political pressure needed to reach a viable, permanent solution.

这项永久性立法陷入僵局，因为欧盟成员国坚持维持那种过时的、自愿的、无差别的私人通讯扫描方式。批评人士警告称，反复延长临时规则会消除达成可行、永久性解决方案所需的政治压力。