On Tuesday 5 September, Member State experts meeting in a working group will consider a new compromise document on the regulation on the removal of child sexual abuse material from the Internet, which is currently on the agenda of the Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting in Brussels on 28 September, with a view to a possible agreement.
According to the Spanish Presidency of the EU Council, this new text, dated 1 August, includes changes to the protection of end-to-end encryption of communications, with additional requirements added to Recital 26.
The text also provides for “additional requirements for the periodicity of risk assessments added, simplification of the procedure to request authorisation to display the sign to be done in parallel to the submission of the risk assessment report”, and cross-border orders for the removal of content.
Other changes concern the provisions on orders for the removal, blocking or delisting of sites, with “clarifications on the possibility for Member States to select judicial authorities as the competent authorities to issue orders”, and the tasks of the EU Centre, which will coordinate the information gathered by platforms in their risk analyses.
With regard to encryption, the latter text states that, “given the availability of technologies that can be used to meet the requirements of this regulation whilst still allowing for end-to-end encryption, nothing in this regulation should be interpreted as prohibiting, requiring to disable, or making end-to-end encryption impossible”.
With regard to the display of a sign enabling users to know that the site they are visiting complies with risk prevention obligations, the new text stipulates that “in any event, the coordinating authority which has issued a service provider with authorisation to display such a sign of compliance should reassess at least every six months whether the conditions of that authorisation are still being met”.
The new compromise does not change the provisions on orders to detect content in private communications, one of the most contentious issues.
The current text states that, “it is appropriate to set additional limits on detection orders concerning the solicitation of children, such as the exclusion of calls, i.e. connections established by means of a publicly available interpersonal communications service allowing two-way voice communications, including such communications between a group of more than two persons”.
“Other interpersonal communications services, including those involving voice communications through recorded and transmitted voice communications, should however remain covered and thus be potentially subject to such detection orders”.
Link to the document: https://aeur.eu/f/8ez (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)