The EU voted on scanning your private messages

Europe voted to let Big Tech keep scanning your messages, and it passed even though most lawmakers in the room voted against it. Unencrypted only. Your WhatsApp is still safe. A bigger fight lands in the autumn. It's Wednesday, 15 July. Twenty-five degrees. The second World Cup semi-final tonight. Here's what you need to know.

🌬️ AIR QUALITY: 24 (Good).

🗞️ TOP STORY

THE EU VOTED TO KEEP LETTING BIG TECH SCAN YOUR MESSAGES, EVEN AFTER MOST MEPS IN THE ROOM SAID NO.

At the end of last week, the day before it broke for summer, the European Parliament quietly renewed the rule that lets tech companies scan your private messages and emails for known child sexual abuse material (CSAM). It was meant to be dead. Parliament had thrown out the same extension in March, and the old rule lapsed on 3 April. The reason it is back, and the reason it matters now, is that the resistance is starting to crack.

The vote itself was strange enough to be its own story. Of the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who voted, 314 wanted to reject it and only 276 wanted to keep it. But blocking it needed an absolute majority of 361, and with more than a hundred MEPs already gone for the holidays, the rejection fell 47 short. It passed despite losing the room, after Parliament's president and the largest group, the centre-right European People's Party (EPP), used an urgency procedure to force the vote through on terms that made it far easier to pass than to block. The people who coined the "Chat Control" nickname call it a democratic stitch-up. Supporters, and Europol, say the scanning is vital for catching people who trade abuse images.

Here is what it actually does, and what it does not. It is permissive, not compulsory: platforms may scan, they are not ordered to. It applies to unencrypted services, the direct messages on Instagram and Snapchat, emails through Gmail and iCloud, and it looks for already-known material by matching digital fingerprints. Crucially, a separate amendment passed the same day put end-to-end encrypted apps explicitly out of reach, so WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage and Telegram are not covered. Nothing new started being scanned this month that was not being scanned before April. This just restored the legal cover.

For you, sitting here in the European Union (EU), the practical version is simple. If you use Gmail, iCloud Mail or unencrypted DMs, your provider can carry on scanning them for known abuse images until April 2028, exactly as before. Your encrypted chats stay private. Worth knowing the tools are not flawless: the European Commission's own report found that when the systems hunt for previously unknown material, as many as one in five flagged conversations turned out not to be abuse material at all.

The reason to pay attention is what comes next. This was the narrow, temporary version. The permanent law, nicknamed "Chat Control 2.0", goes back into negotiation in September, and in its strongest form it would make scanning mandatory and reach into encrypted apps through so-called client-side scanning, checking messages on your phone before they are sent. That would be the end of genuinely private messaging in Europe, and the EPP drifting towards tougher rules is why privacy groups are rattled. The Council's own lawyers have warned the scheme may clash with the EU's own Charter of rights, so this may yet be settled in a courtroom.

Bottom line: nothing on your phone changed overnight, and your encrypted messages are still encrypted. But Europe just reopened the door to scanning private communications through a procedural side entrance, and the real fight, over whether that ever reaches your WhatsApp, arrives in the autumn.

⚡ QUICK HITS

The bank in your pocket is about to overtake Portugal's biggest bank. Revolut has passed 2.3 million clients in Portugal and is heading for 2.5 million this year, closing on Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD), the state-owned giant that has always sat at the top. It is not just client numbers: in June, CGD's own chief executive admitted that 2025 was the last year the state bank will out-earn the fintech. Revolut becoming the biggest player in the country is a milestone worth clocking.

Portugal was named one of Europe's best-value summer trips. A fresh travel ranking puts the country among the continent's best-value holiday destinations, citing the mix of cost, weather and food. The quiet irony, for anyone who actually lives here, is that "best value" is a visitor's verdict: the people paying Lisbon rents are experiencing a rather different price. Still, a decent one to send the relatives who keep asking where to go.

Brussels is drafting new rules for short-term rentals. As part of a wider housing push, the European Commission is moving towards EU-level rules on tourist rentals, the Alojamento Local flats that dominate central Lisbon, alongside more support for affordable housing. The detail is still being written, so it is early to say what changes, but the direction of travel matters in a city where short lets are blamed for a chunk of the rent squeeze. One to watch rather than act on.

The professionals pulling ahead aren't working more. They're using Claude.

Our free guide will show you how to:

Transform your workflow with AI and stay ahead of the curve with this comprehensive guide to using Claude at work.

Get The Free Guide

A quick note: Today's ad is from our network partner Mindstream. If it catches your eye, consider giving it a click. Those clicks directly support The Lisbon Letter and help us keep delivering free daily news, recommendations, and local discoveries to our community every morning. It takes a second, and it goes a surprisingly long way. Thanks for being part of this.

🍽️ SPOT OF THE DAY

SENHOR UVA, LA CAVE (MADRAGOA)

Madragoa is might be one of the last central neighbourhoods that still feels like people actually live there, laundry overhead, no tuk-tuks, and tucked into it on Rua João Anastácio Rosa is a natural-wine bar the size of a front room. It comes from the Quebec-born couple who helped kick off Lisbon's natural-wine wave, and la Cave is where they pour the good stuff, part wine bar, part bottle shop, no dinner reservation required.

The wine is the point, low-intervention bottles from small producers, and the people pouring actually know the list rather than reciting it. Tell them what you like and you will leave with something you have never heard of and want a case of. To eat, it is a short vegetarian run of small plates, artichoke, a burrata with tomato and melon, babaganoush, and bread with homemade butter that regulars rave about more than the wine. There is proper lemonade for anyone not drinking.

Reckon on around €5 to €8 a glass and a few euros more per plate. The honest note: they add the service charge to the bill without asking, which is not the local custom and has caught a few people out, so check the total before you tip on top.

→ Natural wine in a room the size of a kitchen. Find them here ←

Insider tip: go early, because a dozen people fill it, and lead with the bread and butter before anything else. It just might be a better opening act than most mains in the neighbourhood.

📅 WHAT'S ON

See you tomorrow morning.

Reach Lisbon's English-speaking community, every morning. Advertise with the Lisbon Letter.