Chat control is back. Not through a clear yes, but through a procedural trick.
On 9 July the EU Parliament reinstated voluntary chat control (the expired interim regulation 2021/1232). The motion to reject it for good got 314 votes. It would have needed an absolute majority of 361. That majority was missing. So the proposal counts as adopted automatically. A rejected rejection that passes as approval.
One bright spot: the motion to explicitly exclude end-to-end encrypted content was adopted. Signal, Threema and other end-to-end encrypted messengers stay out of scope for now.
Context: this was only the temporary, voluntary rule. The permanent, mandatory chat control 2.0 (the CSA Regulation) is a separate process, still in trilogue. The client-side scanning mandate has been dropped from the Council position there, but mandatory scanning remains contested. That can shift again at any time, especially through the review clause left in the text. Next political trilogue: 29 September.
What you can do: write to your representatives. Sign petitions. Show up at protests. Educate. Yes, the system is corrupt and remote-controlled. You still use every tool you have. Giving up is not a strategy.
If you want to understand how to protect yourself technically, the tools are in my books:
https://alien-investor.org/buecher.html#ChatControl #Privacy #Encryption #GrapheneOS #Freedom #EU