EUROPEAN COMMISSION’S LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL TO COMBAT CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE APPROVED

On November 14, the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament approved with the support of all political groups represented in the European Parliament, the report on the Regulation establishing rules to prevent and combat child sexual abuse, which has led the PP MEP Javier Zarzalejos.

The Regulation aims to establish uniform rules so that all Internet service providers in the European Union have to assess the risks of misuse of their services for the dissemination of child sexual abuse material or child grooming, establish measures to mitigate those risks and, where necessary, detect, report and remove such material.

If, following this assessment, providers identify a significant risk that their services may be misused for the dissemination of child sexual abuse material or for child grooming, they shall implement mitigation measures to address that risk.

The Parliament has included an extensive list of these possible measures that providers may decide to use or not, ranging from reinforcing the principle of security from the design or enabling parental controls, to the use of user age verification systems.

In this regard, the Parliament has also incorporated new obligations for platforms used mainly for the dissemination of pornographic content, which will have to implement, for example, mechanisms for verifying the age of their users, and for online video game chat rooms, which will have to reinforce the privacy mechanisms of their functionalities to prevent, for example, certain users from initiating unsolicited contacts with children.

Only in the event that providers fail to comply with these obligations, as a measure of last resort, a judicial authority may issue a detection order, which means that the provider will have to deploy certain technologies to detect this type of material, i.e. photos and videos containing child sexual abuse.

Balance between the protection of children in the digital world and respect for privacy

The rapporteur who has led the negotiations has been Zarzalejos, who stressed that “the European Parliament has struck a positive balance between the protection of children in the digital world and respect for fundamental rights, most notably that of privacy”.

 The Parliament’s report has strengthened safeguards throughout the legislative text to ensure that there is no mass scanning or widespread web monitoring, that encrypted communications are protected and that, in short, it complies with existing European legislation and the case law of the European Court.

 MEPs also support the creation of a European Union Center for the Protection of Children and wanted to show their support and recognition for victims of sexual abuse by creating a permanent advisory body at the Center to give them a voice and ensure that their views are taken into account.

“To date, only a few Internet service providers are voluntarily collaborating in the fight against online child sexual abuse. This regulation, a pioneer in the world, represents a paradigm shift because, once it is approved and enters into force, all Internet service providers will be obliged to collaborate in the fight against child sexual abuse,” concluded Zarzalejos.