On Monday 6 September, members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) discussed some 1,159 amendments to the Digital Services Act (DSA) tabled in July.
MEPs are focussing in particular on the removal of illegal or illicit content online. To this end, it is proposed that anonymity and non-disclosure of personal data be guaranteed to whistleblowers.
Especially, says an amendment tabled by German MEP Patrick Breyer (Greens/EFA), as “compulsory identification would also be ineffective, as the identification information provided is not verified”.
In addition to protecting those signalling an alert, some MEPs also insist that humans should remain in control and that decisions taken following notifications should not be made by automated tools.
Removal of illegal content. In terms of the time taken to remove material, some members of the JURI Committee also call for a tightening of the notion of “rapid removal” championed by the European Commission. They would like to see problematic content removed within 30 minutes.
Still on the subject of removing illegal content, some believe that a trusted ‘flagger’ who “regularly” alerts about legal content could have his status withdrawn.
Furthermore, the Commission’s approach in its original proposal was partly based on the URL to locate content. This point has been rejected by some MEPs who are convinced that current and future technological developments will make this strategy obsolete.
Proposals have also been made to provide consumers with a minimum time limit for cancelling an online payment, in order to limit fraud.
Finally, in the area of online advertising, some MEPs believe that simple user consent does not provide sufficient protection. They believe that the phasing out of targeted advertising should be based on the approach advocated by the European Data Protection Board, which recommends banning it. (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)