The reactions to the political deadlock have been furious: European home affairs commissioner Magnus Brunner said it was “hard to understand,” and child rights group the Internet Watch Foundation called it an “abject political failure.”
Despite the lack of a legal fix, tech firms could very well continue to scan for child sexual abuse.
Google, Meta, Microsoft and Snapchat’s parent company Snap said in a joint statement late on Friday that they “will continue to take voluntary action” to scan messages. “We call on EU institutions to conclude negotiations on a regulatory framework as a matter of urgency,” the tech companies said.
One senior industry official involved in decisions on scanning, granted anonymity because they’re not authorized to speak publicly, said their view is that, though the end of the law makes the legal picture murky, it does not make it unlawful to scan.
Firms faced a similar gap in 2020, when they fell without a legal basis to scan for content. All companies scanning for CSAM, with the exception of Meta, said they did not stop scanning at that time.
A Microsoft lobbyist in February said the previous legal vacuum “did not stop Microsoft from continuing voluntary detection,” in an email to lawmakers seen by POLITICO.