Member States’ experts will continue, on 24 February, their work in the Law Enforcement (Police) Working Party on the Regulation on the removal of child pornography content online by providers of hosting or interpersonal communication services, presented last May by the Commission (see EUROPE 12950/5).
On the basis of new compromise documents submitted by the Swedish Presidency of the EU Council, they will discuss mechanisms for reporting the presence of child pornography by users. The latest compromises in 2022 included obligations for search engines to dereference websites (see EUROPE 13030/4).
The discussion on 24 February will also cover the obligations to remove this material.
With regard to reporting by Internet users and users of e-mail services, “the host or service provider must provide a user-friendly mechanism for making such reports anonymously and exclusively by electronic means. The mechanism made available to users should facilitate the submission of sufficiently precise and adequately substantiated notices”, suggests a compromise document of 16 February.
To this end, “the providers shall take the necessary measures to enable and to facilitate the submission of notices containing all of the following elements: - a sufficiently substantiated explanation of the reasons why the user alleges the information in question to be online child sexual abuse; - a clear indication of the exact electronic location of that information, such as the exact URL or URLs, and, where necessary, additional information enabling the identification of the online child sexual abuse”.
With regard to take-down obligations, the latter text specifies that “the competent authority (judicial or administrative authorities) shall have the power to issue a removal order requiring a provider of hosting services to remove or disable access in all Member States of one or more specific items of material that, after a diligent assessment, is identified as constituting child sexual abuse material”.
This removal must be made as soon as possible and, in any case, within 24 hours of receipt by the provider.
Before the competent authority issues its removal order, it shall inform the provider of the main elements of the content of the proposed removal order and give the provider the opportunity to comment.
“A removal order shall be issued when: - all investigations and assessments necessary have been carried out; - the reasons for issuing the removal order outweigh negative consequences for the rights and legitimate interests of all parties affected, having regard in particular to the need to ensure a fair balance between the fundamental rights of those parties, including the exercise of the users’ freedom of expression and information and the provider’s freedom to conduct a business”, the compromise further states.
The Presidency text also specifies the standard format of this removal order.
Link to the document of 16 February: https://aeur.eu/f/5ef (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)