On Thursday 31 August, the German website Netzpolitik.org published the contents of EU Council documents on the progress of work on the regulation on the removal of child sexual abuse material from the Internet, citing the positions of the Member States at the EU Council working group meeting on 26 July.
Despite the legal opinion of the EU Council, the Member States had wanted to continue work on injunctions to detect this material in interpersonal communications (see EUROPE 13193/3), and the meeting on 26 July confirmed this desire, reports the website.
Nine Member States fully supported the latest texts, in particular the new language on the encryption of communications, which the regulation must not weaken or prohibit, even though on 16 July the Spanish Presidency of the EU Council proposed deletion of more explicit paragraphs on this subject.
However, several countries remain highly critical and are unable to approve the current text, including Germany, Poland and Austria, reports Netzpolitik. The crux of the controversy is the central element of the law: the obligation for Internet services to monitor the communications and content of their users in an anarchic manner and to investigate infringements.
Germany wants to delete certain proposals from the regulation, notably on encrypted communications. Austria believes that the monitoring of communications goes much too far and needs to be much more targeted. The Netherlands is also highly critical, reports the site, and is calling for end-to-end encryption protection to be included in the text.
Poland also believes that the communications of non-suspects should not be monitored unnecessarily. Measures must be limited to those suspected of having committed an offence.
Various countries have also asked Spain to slow down the pace, with Madrid hoping to reach an agreement on 28 September at a meeting of EU interior ministers in Brussels. A timetable that is too ambitious for these delegations, which have strong red lines on several of the text’s provisions, says Netzpolitik.
A new compromise text will be discussed by the working group on 5 September. According to one source, the Spanish Presidency of the EU Council has put this issue on the agenda for 28 September, but an agreement seems difficult to reach at this stage, given the persistent differences of opinion.
Link to the Netzpolitik website: https://aeur.eu/f/8ej (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)