Statement: The compromise on the proposed EU Child Sexual Abuse Regulation is a step back in the protection of children online
Terre des Hommes Netherlands calls on the EU and the Dutch Minister of Justice and Security to ensure a strong protection of children online against known and unknown child sexual abuse material and grooming on all platforms. As the protection of children and privacy can both co-exist and in fact go hand in hand, there should not be any compromise on the rights of children to be protected.
Step back
TdH NL is gravely concerned that the European Parliament’s compromise on the proposed EU Child Sexual Abuse legislation is a step back in the protection of children online. The draft compromise will effectively lead to a vast reduction in child sexual abuse material detected and reported by online companies, and thus less children identified and rescued from abuse.
Compromise
The compromise, which was recently announced, wants to limit detection orders for companies to individuals suspected of child sexual abuse. To find those materials, law enforcement would thus first need to find those suspected individuals, most likely based on public reports. This shows not only a lack of understanding of this crime, which can be committed by a wide range of individuals, including children themselves. It is also ill fit to the vast scale of images circulating (88.3 million files reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in 2002 alone), where the proposed targeted detection would be akin to using a needle to fight a giant.
Grooming
The text proposed by the European Parliament also leaves out grooming, a practice which has been heavily on the rise in recent years. It increased by 82% from 2021 to 2022 and cannot be ignored by legislators.
The compromise would also exclude detection in end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) platforms, giving the opportunity to offenders to freely share child sexual abuse material. Companies, such as WhatsApp, already safely detect viruses and malwares. There is no reason why this could not be also done for known and unknown child sexual abuse material. We know the technology exists, works and is highly accurate.
Strong legislation needed
Nathalie Meurens, EU Advocacy Lead at Terre des Hommes Netherlands, says:
“The compromise not only rolls back on protecting children online, it will create safe havens for offenders to freely exchange child sexual abuse material and groom children. The detection that has been done safely for over a decade by over 200 companies, will be rolled back, leaving children at the mercy of their offenders and the privacy of survivors violated.”
Policy-makers are not listening to the public who overwhelmingly backs strong EU legislation. 95% of Europeans support legislation for strong child safety online and 81% of Europeans want online service providers to detect, report, and remove child sexual abuse material online. In TdH NL own poll, conducted in June 2023, 84% of parents with children aged 8-18 supported legislation that requires online service providers to do more to detect and remove child sexual abuse from their platforms. More than half of parents (56%) expected such laws to result in less victims of child sexual abuse and exploitation.
Nathalie adds: “A bigger privacy issue is looming as every children’s face can now be turned into child sexual abuse material thanks to AI. This is already happening. Without detection, we cannot find and remove them due to the sheer number of them and the vast underreporting. We need strong EU legislation to tackle the dark side of technology.”
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