A majority of European lawmakers voted against allowing big tech companies to read our messages. They’re going to anyway.

European Parliament The United States has voted to extend legislation allowing technology companies to voluntarily scan users’ private messages for child sexual abuse material, despite a majority of lawmakers voting against the proposal.

The ruling restores permissions for companies including Meta, Google and Microsoft to scan private text messages, email and social media messages through a bill critics have dubbed “chat control.” End-to-end encrypted chats, such as those on WhatsApp and Signal, remain exempt.

“It would mean that private companies could deny you your right to have confidential digital conversations,” Simeon de Brouwer, a policy advisor at the Brussels-based European Digital Rights Group, tells WIRED. “They could, if they wanted, read every message you write, every email you send, every photo you share.”

The European People’s Party, the largest political group in the European Parliament, has been fighting to restore the legal basis for tech companies to screen messages since a previous law expired in April. Members say companies’ voluntary disclosure activities have helped identify and rescue victims of online child sexual abuse, and not allowing them leaves children unprotected. They rushed to return the legislation before Parliament disperses for its summer recess at the end of the month.

“We cannot go to summer vacation knowing that our children are not protected,” party Vice President Thomas Tobey told lawmakers earlier in the week.

But the privacy implications meant the legislation faced fierce opposition from other parties and civil rights activists. The European People’s Party resorted to a procedural maneuver to force a new vote on this legislation this week after the collapse of talks in March. This “urgent procedure” bypasses the initial committee discussions where amendments are often introduced and provides for the regulation to be passed unless an absolute majority of 361 members of the European Parliament votes against it.

While more MEPs voted against the regulation on Thursday than in favor, they fell short of that majority of 47 votes. Tech companies will now retain that right to scan messages for child sexual abuse until 2028, or until it is replaced by permanent legislation — under discussion and which critics have already called “chat control.”

Civil rights activist and former European Parliament member Patrick Breyer described the ruling as a “farce” that is “harmful to democracy.”

“Our children are the real losers in this undemocratic process,” according to A Blog post By Briar. “Trying to protect children through unsuspecting mass surveillance is like frantically mopping the floor while the tap is still running. Blanket chat control is just as unacceptable as opening everyone’s physical mail indiscriminately.”