Fighting illegal Internet content: A balancing act between safety in the Internet and democratic principles.
The question of how to handle reports on potentially illegal Internet content was subject to intense political and media debate once more last year, a debate within which the much-discussed Network Enforcement Act featured particularly prominently. Last year, the eco Complaints Office was also heavily embroiled in these discussions, which are also increasingly a live issue at European level. But even aside from this debate, the eco Complaints Office can look back on an intensive year in 2017. The total number of complaints rose once more: The number of justified complaints more than doubled compared to the previous year, but the success of the eco Complaints Office was not adversely affected as a result. In total, after being reported to the eco Complaints Office, 94.76% of illegal Internet content, such as depictions of sexual abuse, incitement of the masses, and depictions of violence, was removed worldwide in 2017. Collaboration with important stakeholders was strengthened – for example, in the case of stepped-up cooperation with law enforcement agencies – based on the recognition that consistent criminal prosecution is essential for our work and the effective fight against criminal Internet content.
Once again in 2017, the dialogs with our members as well as the many political debates and discussions with parliamentarians showed how important transparency is, especially in terms of strengthening confidence in our Complaints Office’s work. For this reason, we have compiled an independent Annual Report of the eco Complaints Office for the year 2017 with details of our work and statistics, which we now wish to present to you.
We invite you to the Policy Breakfast in the Members Salon of the European Parliament (Rue Wiertz 60), where we would like to provide you with information and open a discussion on the topic:
    • Greeting
   • Keynote Speech, MEP Sabine Verheyen
   • Review 2017: Presentation of the Annual Report (work, number of complaints and successes of the eco Complaints Office),
    Alexandra Koch-Skiba, Head of the eco Complaints Office
   • Outlook for 2018
We would be delighted to welcome you:
   • Date: Tuesday, 27th March 2018 from 08:30 to 09:30 a.m.
   • Location: Members’ Salon (Rue Wiertz 60, 1140 Brussels)
For organizational reasons, we would kindly ask you to respond by 23rd March via email to berlin@eco.de. If you do not have active access authorization to the European Parliament (badge), on registering, please provide your name, date of birth, national identity number, and nationality for the purposes of your registration with the European Parliament Security Service.
We would like to point out that the breakfast will be held in English. If you have any questions, Ms. Busse (melanie.busse@eco.de) would be glad to help you.
https://international.eco.de/internet-complaints-office.html
https://international.eco.de/internet-complaints-office/youth-protection-solutions.html