The Finnish Presidency of the Council of the European Union is continuing its efforts to reach a compromise within the institution on the Regulation on the confidentiality of electronic communications. On Tuesday 24 September, it will propose to Member States' experts to discuss a new compromise proposal.
This new version, dated 18 September, mainly concerns the fight against child pornography and the retention of data for the general interest.
On the first question, the Finnish Presidency is submitting two options to the Member States: in the first, it suggests that the fight against child pornography be addressed in Article 29, which concerns the entry into force of the text. It is thus based on a proposal it had already made in July, but this time opts for a permanent solution rather than a temporary one (see EUROPE 12306/8). In a second option, the rotating Presidency of the EU Council proposes to include this issue in Article 6 on data processing. In particular, it proposes to create a new legal basis for derogating from the principle of consent, but provides a framework for the technique of detecting child pornography content with four safeguards (including the use of a non-reconvertible digital signature - a 'hash').
On the other aspect, that of retention, the Presidency stresses that the new rules do not prevent a Member State from adopting “legislative measures to retain data for a limited period of time, if necessary and in a proportionate manner, to safeguard the public interest”.
The EU Council has been discussing this text for more than two years now, which addresses the issue of Internet cookies and also covers bypass services such as Skype (see EUROPE 11700/1). The Parliament had adopted its position at the end of 2017 (see EUROPE 11892/6, 12322/13). Link: http://bit.ly/2kNEGCx. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)