Civil victory: the European Parliament removes mass surveillance from the law against sexual abuse of minors

2023-11-14 15:16:04

Big little victory for organizations in defense of the digital rights. This Tuesday, the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament adopted its position on the expected law against child sexual abuse and has removed the mass surveillance of telecommunications, its most controversial aspect.

A leaked document reveals that Spain wants to track your private messages to detect illegalities

With 51 votes in favor, two against and one abstention, those in charge of drafting this new regulation have approved that judicial authorities can authorize orders to detect and remove content from child exploitation. Legal avenues may be used as a last resort and when other measures have failed to alleviate the problem.

The agreement sealed this Tuesday excludes the detection from affecting the end to end encryption. The initial proposal, promoted by the European Comissiondemanded of the large digital platforms – from WhatsApp to TikTok, from video game to the cloud– indiscriminately track the encrypted communications of all users of the European Union (EU) in search of pedophile material.

This possibility put at risk the privacy of citizens, which has sparked a wave of indignation that has forced legislators to rectify. “It would destroy privacy and, furthermore, we have no proof that the technology The proposed detection method will help save children, it is very fragile and makes many mistakes,” explained the telecommunications engineer. Carmela Troncosoprofessor at the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne, to El Periódico de Cataluña, from the Prensa Ibérica group.

Obligations to mitigate risks

The European Parliament rejects scanning citizens’ private messages for child sexual abuse

The regulations agreed today will force providers of internet to evaluate whether there is a risk that its services will be used for the recruitment of minors and spreading the bad call child pornography and to take measures to mitigate them. However, the agreement establishes that these companies will be responsible for deciding what media they use.

MEPs have made a series of proposals in that direction. For example, services aimed at minors block unsolicited messages and require user consent by default. Also that pornographic websites use effective age verification systems, that the parental controls or that there are content moderators to process possible complaints against abusive materials.