The Justice Ministers of the Member States discussed on Monday 7 June how to combat illegal content online under the framework of the Digital Services Act (DSA) (see EUROPE 12732/12).
“Ministers agreed that there was a need to find solutions for the judicial aspects of the DSA. We can see that the Internet can easily be misused for the dissemination of terrorist and extremist content, child pornography and hate speech content”, said Portuguese Minister Francisca Van Dunem.
A number of issues were discussed by Ministers, who specifically requested clarification on the potential impact of the DSA on criminal justice.
Some Member States have also questioned the notion of “serious criminal offences involving a threat to life or safety of persons”. In particular, they emphasised the need to clarify which offences should be notified to the authorities, in order to avoid legal uncertainty.
Furthermore, in terms of extra clarification, the ministers addressed the issue of withdrawal periods and notification systems.
The DSA provides for a national authority being able to make a request that a service provider from another Member State removes content. This provider must inform the issuing authority of the action they have taken. However, the wording of the original text indicates that the authorities should be informed “promptly”, and yet does not set any precise limits. Some Member States believe that this term is imprecise, stressing the importance of there being clear guidelines.
At the end of April, the European Parliament approved institutional rules that will require online terrorist content to be removed within 1 hour (see EUROPE 12709/2).
Finally, Member States have questioned whether there is any justification for exempting small online platforms from the obligation to inform the competent authorities in the event of serious criminal offences.
Read the EU Council’s paper on combating illegal content online under the DSA: https://bit.ly/3gcHhP2 (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)