Open Letter: We say no to Big Tech mass snooping on our messages!
EDRi and 35 organisations are urging Members of the European Parliament to reject any extension of the the temporary ePrivacy derogration, also known as “Chat Control 1.0”, and to protect the rights that keep us safe from arbitrary snooping in our lives.
Parliament must act now to stop mass snooping
The European Parliament is currently deciding its position on the proposed second extension of the ‘temporary’ interim ePrivacy derogation 2025/0429(COD), with trilogues expected to start in early Spring 2026. The derogation is sometimes referred to as “Chat Control 1.0” because it suspends the fundamental right to privacy enshrined in EU primary and secondary law. This right is supposed to keep us all safe from arbitrary or untargeted snooping in our digital and physical private lives.
It is vital that MEPs act now to rule out mass snooping on our private messages.
This controversial law was already criticised strongly by many in the Parliament when it was first extended by the Commission, leading to a Parliament position which stated that after the first extension, the derogation “shall elapse permanently”.
The proposed extension of this law would allow Big Tech companies to continue to scan billions of private messages (chats), emails and social media posts of people across the EU, and report them to a US center in case they suspect abuse material is being shared. The US center then forwards material on to US and EU law enforcement agencies.
We urge Members of the European Parliament to reject any extension of the interim ePrivacy derogation unless it explicitly rules out mass surveillance (meaning no indiscriminate or untargeted scanning), requires a high standard of accuracy (meaning no scanning for ‘new’ or ‘unknown’ material), and is clearly time-bound to a maximum of 1 year.
