Today, the Committee of the Parties to the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (“Lanzarote Committee”) held an exchange of views with the European Commission on the EU’s Proposal for a Regulation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse (“proposed EU Regulation”). As part of this exchange, Dr Mark Leiser and Dr Sabine Witting, legal academics presented a report on the potential implications of the proposed EU Regulation.
The proposed EU Regulation seeks to establish a clear and harmonised legal framework for preventing and combating online child sexual abuse. It seeks to provide legal certainty to providers as to their responsibilities to assess and mitigate risks and, where necessary, to detect, report and remove known and new child sexual abuse material as well as child solicitation on their services in a manner consistent with the fundamental rights laid down in the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms and as general principles of EU law.
The debate around the proposed Regulation continues to lack consensus, with child protection advocates calling for the proactive use of safety technology with robust safeguards to detect child sexual abuse in digital environment, and digital rights and privacy advocates calling such measures ‘mass surveillance’ on the other side. Such conflicting positions risk missing the complexity of the debate and hinder thoughtful child rights and human rights-based policy decisions. Privacy and safety are independent and interrelated rights that benefit from each other’s strength: high privacy standards will positively impact children’s safety online, just as the victims of child sexual abuse material have the right to privacy and protection from the images of their abuse being repeatedly shared online.
The report launched today puts forward measures to address some concerns regarding the compliance of the proposed EU Regulation with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the prohibition of general monitoring obligations for digital platforms and services, as well as potential impact on specific fundamental and human rights. The report also highlights several measures the EU could take to prevent and respond to online child sexual abuse, such as setting mandatory standards for child-friendly reporting mechanisms and ensuring that adolescents are not referred to law enforcement for consensual sexual exploration. As to the EU proposal’s new EU Centre to prevent ad combat child sexual abuse, the report suggests that it should be independent of EUROPOL and serve as a platform for knowledge sharing, coordination, and EU-wide victim support.
The report was prepared by Dr Mark Leiser and Dr Sabine Witting, legal academics from the Vrije University of Amsterdam and Leiden University, respectively, with sponsorship from both universities, ECPAT International and the Council of Europe. It is the result of a workshop convened by ECPAT International and the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, under Chatham House rules in October 2022. Another expert workshop will take place on 2 and 3 March 2023 at VU-Amsterdam, focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of currently available detection technologies from a child rights and fundamental rights perspective.
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