EU member states have agreed on a position regarding online child protection legislation that doesn’t force global tech companies to identify and remove child sexual abuse materials (CSAM.) This is being seen as a major victory for US tech companies like Google and Meta, according to reporting by Reuters.
This new European Council language contradicts a 2023 position in which the European Parliament would have required messaging services, app stores and ISPs to report and remove CSAM materials and instances of grooming. The proposed legislation doesn’t have any of that.
Instead, it tasks major tech companies with assessing the risk of their services, taking preventative measures as deemed necessary. It leaves enforcement up to individual national governments and not the EU governing body.
“Member states will designate national authorities … responsible for assessing these risk assessments and mitigating measures, with the possibility of obliging providers to carry out mitigating measures,” the European Council wrote in a statement. “In the event of non-compliance, providers could be subject to penalty payments.”
There’s no language here regarding the enforced scanning of encrypted materials for CSAM, which was an idea being discussed as recently as last year. However, there is some language that suggests encryption services must be safeguarded. Some detractors, like the Czech Republic, suggest that the Council’s idea to allow tech entities to essentially self-police content could actually hurt encryption platforms.
This is “a great disappointment for everyone who cares about privacy,” Czech politician Markéta Gregorová wrote in a statement. “The Danish presidency has pushed through a compromise version of the proposal after long negotiations, which, while appearing to be less invasive, actually paves the way for what we have long warned against: the blanket scanning of our private conversations.”
The proposed law does, however, establish something called the EU Center on Child Sexual Abuse. This organization would have a mandate to help countries comply and provide assistance for victims. The European Parliament also recently called on the EU to set minimum ages for kids to access social media, but there’s no current law in the works.
All of this isn’t a done deal just yet. The Council now must enter into negotiations with the Parliament.
