On Monday 23 February, the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE) examined the proposal to extend the derogation from the ePrivacy Directive, intended to combat child pornography content online.
Given the delay in adopting a permanent framework, the rapporteur, Birgit Sippel (S&D, German), deplored the fact that restrictions on fundamental rights “risk staying in place much longer (...) than planned”. She criticised the lack of evidence provided by the Commission to justify generalised surveillance, describing current data as “incomplete and often inaccurate”.
Among the shadow rapporteurs and the rest of the members of the LIBE Committee, there was a broad consensus in favour of limiting this extension to a maximum of 12 months and restricting its scope to the detection of material already identified (see EUROPE 13803/7).
Ms Sippel insisted on the protection of end-to-end encryption, stating that any extension must be “strictly limited to what is evidently proportionate and necessary”. The vote on this negotiating mandate is scheduled for Monday 2 March. (Original version in French by Justine Manaud)