The draft report by Javier Zarzalejos (EPP, Spanish) on the regulation on the removal of child pornography from the internet was, with a few exceptions, relatively well received on Wednesday 26 April in the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties (see EUROPE 13166/16), with most of the shadow rapporteurs believing that the Spaniard’s work could provide a good basis for discussion.
This report responds to the Commission’s proposal of May 2022 to require an additional and compulsory effort from content providers and web hosts to detect the presence online, and in particular in private communications, of child sexual abuse material or incitement of minors to sexual practices.
The regulation includes an obligation for platforms to assess the risk of their services being used for child pornography, and to put in place preventive measures with neutral technologies that they choose.
On Wednesday, the Spanish MEP criticised certain colleagues, notably German MEP Patrick Breyer (Green/ALE), who had warned against widespread surveillance of communications. Talking about monitoring private communications “minimises the debate and is misleading”, the rapporteur said.
“There is no general obligation to monitor, there are nuanced approaches based on the risk of each service” Zarzalejos added, with technologies that will not undermine encryption.
Detection orders, which should remain a measure of “last resort”, will be limited to certain parts of a service and to certain groups of users, those most at risk.
Dutch S&D shadow rapporteur Paul Tang welcomed the rapporteur’s commitments not to jeopardise encryption, but insisted on the need to put in place prevention strategies “by design” with user notification tools. He also called for a tightening of detection orders. The Spaniard’s report was nevertheless a “good basis” for a constructive discussion, he said.
Hilde Vautmans (Renew Europe, Belgian) strongly supported the Spaniard’s work, but her German colleague Moritz Körner criticised a proposal that will only overburden the competent authorities.
For Breyer, the regulation is “unprecedented and divides even child protection organisations”. Supporting the principle of safety by design, he wants to limit detection orders to people with a history of offences.
While the report goes in the right direction on some aspects, such as the new Consultative Forum for Victims, a “new approach “ is needed.
“Rather than trying and failing to block content via ISPs or search engines, we should make it compulsory to remove it at source”, he said.
Cornelia Ernst (The Left, German) also welcomed a good working basis. Her group will work to strengthen the enforcement of encryption.
Link to the draft report: https://aeur.eu/f/6kh (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)