The European Commission published a proposal for a Regulation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse online in May 2022. The proposal obliges online service providers to detect, report and remove child sexual abuse on their services and it establishes a new independent EU Centre on Child Sexual Abuse.

Since its publication, the proposal ignited a strong debate on how to reconcile child safety without hampering privacy and fundamental rights. Industry stakeholders and privacy advocates have voiced criticism on how certain rules, such as detection obligations for messaging services, could undermine encryption technology and seriously impact user’s privacy. On the other hand, the European Commission and children rights champions call for a swift adoption of the Regulation pointing to the fact that the ePrivacy Derogation – which provides the legal basis for providers of messaging services to perform voluntary detection of CSAM – will expire in August 2024.

The objective of this EIF event will be to address some of the strategic questions of the proposal - such as the scope or the role of encryption in preserving privacy in communication messaging services – and encourage discussion on the most controversial aspects.

• Programme

  Opening remarks

  Ivan Stefanec MEP and EIF Programming Committee Co-Chair

  Speakers

  Caterina Molinari, Policy Officer - Fight against cybercrime and child sexual abuse, DG Home, European Commission

  Alexandra Koch-Skiba representing EuroISPA; Head of Complaints Office, eco (Association of the Internet Industry)

  Tomas Krissak, Expert in information security

  Jean-Christophe Le Toquin, Coordinator of Encryption Europe

  Exchange of views with the participants under the Chatham House rule