The European institutions will hold a third inter-institutional negotiation meeting on Tuesday 9 March, on the provisional derogation from the rules of confidentiality on the Internet for the purpose of combating child pornography. This trilogue will be devoted to ‘anti-grooming technologies’ and prior authorisation (see EUROPE 12618/14).
The meeting will start in the morning and is not expected to be conclusive. However, the aim of the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU remains to complete its work before the end of its mandate at the end of June.
As a reminder, the proposed Regulation introduces a derogation from the confidentiality rules contained in the ‘e-Privacy Directive’ in order to allow online communication services to continue to detect and report child sexual abuse content on a voluntary basis (see EUROPE 12557/13, 12575/25).
These services, of the WhatsApp or Skype type, will, in fact, fall within the scope of the Electronic Communications Code which has been in force since 21 December 2020. The proposal therefore suggests temporarily exempting these services from the rules on confidentiality of online communications, while the Commission presents a permanent proposal.
Pirate Party MEP Patrick Breyer (Greens/EFA, Germany), who is fiercely opposed to this “ generalised control of messages and discussions”, insisted on Monday that “in recent weeks, experts, data protection commissioners and a child victim of sexual abuse have strongly criticised the bill”. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)