On 6 July, the European Parliament adopted in a final vote the derogation to the main piece of EU legislation protecting privacy, the ePrivacy D

It’s official. Your private communications can (and will) be spied on

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2021-07-13 23:00:10

On 6 July, the European Parliament adopted in a final vote the derogation to the main piece of EU legislation protecting privacy, the ePrivacy Directive, to allow Big Tech to scan your emails, messages and other online communications.

If you are in shock and need first some background reading, we recommend you to read more about where all of this comes from. Read our previous blogposts here and here. In essence, the adopted interim Regulation (it is a temporary Regulation that will cease to be valid in December 2022) allows the continuation of voluntary scanning of all communications all the time by certain service providers to detect and report to authorities online child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The final text is available here.

As a whole, the legislation is a negative evolution in the sense that it will legalise the continuous voluntary scanning of all communications by private companies. The services under the scope of the interim Regulation are as broadly defined as in the ePrivacy Directive, including your Facebook Messenger messages, Tinder chats, emails and any other form of online communication that will come up in the future is potentially under the scope.