The EU Commission’s proposal for a “Regulation on laying down rules to prevent and combat child sexual abuse” (in short, CSAM Regulation), including the much disputed chat control, continues to generate much discussion and massive critique. This week, the Interior and Justice Ministers in Brussels were supposed to adopt the EU Council’s position on the draft law. However, the Spanish Council Presidency has removed the topic from the agenda, as there is currently no majority in favour of the text of the law. For the Association of the Internet Industry, the current political stirrings reaffirm the numerous points of criticism that eco has expressed since the publication of the draft regulation. eco now advocates for a fundamental reconsideration of the provisions on proactive search obligations and disabling access, as well as a general revision of the rules on proactive search for the purpose of detecting child sexual abuse on the Internet.
Head of the eco Complaints Office Alexandra Koch-Skiba has this to say:
“The National Council of the Swiss Parliament has just voted quite clearly against the CSAM Regulation, and in European Member States such as Austria, Poland and the Netherlands, parliaments have also already expressed their opposition to the proposed law. For Germany, the draft regulation would not be acceptable if it does not make comprehensive adjustments to the planned rules. What we have opposed from the beginning is becoming increasingly clear: the EU Commission’s draft regulation attempts to regulate a complex issue, including on the basis of supposedly unproblematic search obligations. However, in reality, the draft entails a number of factual and legal consequential problems and would fail before the ECJ at the latest. The prescriptive stipulations contained therein lead to general surveillance, undermine important end-to-end security technologies, and rely on blocking of Internet content rather than the systematic take-down of abusive content based on the expansion and strengthening of cooperation. It is important to address the follow-on problems that have arisen in connection with the draft regulation within the framework of the European legislative processes.”
In view of the ongoing European legislative process and the further votes on the CSAM Regulation within the German federal government, the Association of the Internet Industry calls for a thorough revision of the draft regulation at this point in time.
eco also calls on the LIBE Committee to address the crucial role of the hotlines and the INHOPE network during the finalisation of the report on the CSAM Regulation, and to emphasise this role more prominently through proposing appropriate amendments. The hotlines’ network should be explicitly designated as a cooperative partner and a significant actor within the framework of the CSAM Regulation.
