“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,” wrote Patrick Beyer, a long-standing critic of the proposal and a former MEP himself.
In November, he warned that enterprises could be affected by the measure. “For a corporation, a ‘false positive’ could mean that confidential internal documents, code, or strategic plans are flagged and sent to external authorities or police forces without the company’s knowledge.”
Discussions on a permanent solution to the issue are continuing, with some firmly entrenched views on both sides. “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?” wrote Beyer.
