The Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union had presented, on Thursday 22 September, a new compromise text on the Regulation on the removal of online child sexual abuse material (see EUROPE 12990/2) to Member States’ experts.
Dated 15 September, this proposal clarifies certain provisions, such as the fact that detection orders concerning child solicitation apply only to “interpersonal communications between a child user and an adult user” and no longer only to ‘a user’. It adjusts the provisions on withdrawal orders and their application in a cross-border context.
The text also creates a new system of ‘delisting orders’ for online search engine providers.
This new article provides for the competent authority to issue a delisting order to the online search engine provider to remove a particular website, “indicating specific items of child sexual abuse”. It also specifies the procedures for contesting these delisting orders.
The addition of these website delisting orders is not supported by some groups in the European Parliament, such as the Greens/EFA group, which opposed this during the negotiation of the Digital Services Act (DSA).
But the biggest problem, according to the office of Patrick Breyer (Greens/EFA, German), contacted by EUROPE, is that the regulation continues to provide for widespread monitoring of online interpersonal communications.
The German government is also very divided on the issue, according to the national press, with the liberal FDP party stating that the Commission’s regulation would go too far in monitoring communications.
Link to the compromise: https://aeur.eu/f/39y (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)