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EU puts chat control on back burner

The EU has put its controversial plans to monitor private chats – so-called chat control – on the back burner, after the European Council failed to get a majority in favour. In a separate development, the European Commission has been chastised by the EU Ombudsman for failing to disclose communications about the legislation with a US tech lobbyist. European and UK digital rights organisations  responded with  an open letter  calling for the proposed law to be dropped. 

A blocking minority in the European Council meant that a crucial vote on the Child Sexual Abuse Regulation  (chat control)  - due to have been held  at the end of June – was dropped. The Regulation  is provisionally back on the agenda for  a preparatory meeting on Friday 13th October, under the Hungarian Presidency. Germany and Poland were opposed to the new law, and it was expected that Slovenia, Austria, Czech Republic, Netherlands and Estonia would have abstained, meaning that there would not have been sufficient support to win a vote.

The  appallingly-named Child Sexual Abuse Regulation proposes that not only public online posts, but also private communications, including encrypted ones, could be  screened for illegal images and videos.  It would be done via interception of content as the user uploads it to the platform (dubbed upload moderation). In essence, chat platform providers would be bugging smartphones in a way that contravenes the European Convention on Human Rights. The law would also require age verification, effectively turning online platforms into turnstile operators for visitors to websites and services.

If adopted, the Regulation would signal the implementation of swathes of monitoring technology. It would look at our age and what we post.  There are industry stakeholders who are keen for this to happen.

The EU Ombudsman Decision of 12 July provides a view through the keyhole of how the EU is being lobbied by surveillance-tech firms who have an interest in this space. This is a little known and under-researched area,  which has a  significant public interest in light of the potential for these technologies to decide or refuse access to online content. 

The Ombudsman has criticised the European Commission  for failing to disclose communications with the US vendor Thorn, which develops and sell tools for detecting child sexual abuse material. Four documents were requested by  journalist, but the EU refused to make them public. The Ombudsman found that this refusal constituted maladministration.

There were some communications between the European Commission and Thorn that emerged into the public domain last year via the activist and former MEP Dr Patrick Breyer.  In one of the documents, Thorn argued that laws to tackle child sexual abuse online should not be overly prescriptive.   It’s not clear whether these are the same documents as those examined by the Ombudsman.

The closeness of the relationship between law makers and companies who make content screening and age verification technologies is clearly in the public interest and the Ombudsman’s Decision is welcome.

A coalition of 49 NGOs from Europe and the UK has demanded that the Child Sexual Abuse Regulation should be disbanded, and that instead public authorities should invest child protection and  prevention of abuse. In the UK, in 2022, 100,000 children were sexually abused, but the Home Office budget allowed only £42 per child victim, according to the MP Jess Philips (now a junior Minister in the Home Office) speaking in Parliament on 17 January 2024.

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About Iptegrity

Iptegrity.com is the website of Dr Monica Horten, independent policy advisor: online safety, technology and human rights. Advocating to protect the rights of the majority of law abiding citizens online. Independent expert on the Council of Europe Committee of Experts on online safety and empowerment of content creators and users.  Published author, and post-doctoral scholar, with a PhD from the University of Westminster, and a DipM from the Chartered Institute of Marketing.  Former telecoms journalist,  experienced panelist and Chair, cited in the media eg  BBC, iNews, Times, Guardian and Politico.