Doubts about the legality of chat scanning slow down negotiation at 27 of the law against online child sexual abuse

BRUSSELS Dec. 12 () –

The Interior Ministers of the European Union have failed this Thursday in a new attempt to establish their negotiating position on a reform with which to strengthen the fight against sexual abuse of minors on the Internet, after verifying that a dozen countries, including Germany , the Netherlands and Poland, maintain serious doubts about the legality of one of the key measures that provides for the systematic scanning of all private communications on platforms such as WhatsApp or Skype.

The current presidency – which Hungary has held this semester – has been able to confirm in the debate at 27 that “more work is necessary” to resolve the differences between governments, a necessary step before formal negotiations can begin. of the norm with the other European co-legislator, the European Parliament.

“We do not have an agreement on a general orientation of the Council,” said the Hungarian Minister of the Interior, Sándor Pinté, after listening to the interventions of the heads of the Interior of Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Finland. , Slovenia and Estonia.

In this debate, only those delegations with problems supporting the common position on the table have taken the floor and they have done so to warn that they would abstain if a formal vote took place because they believe that this exhaustive control of the chats conflicts with the Charter of EU Fundamental Rights and the right to privacy of platform users.

The debate was opened by the new Commissioner for the Interior and Migration, Magnus Brunner, who has defended that the new rule is “key” to the prevention of online abuse of minors, while warning that minors are often afraid of report these situations or are too young to realize that they are suffering abuse.

“The only way for these minors to be rescued from ongoing abuse is if there is proactive detection of the images or videos that criminals exchange, often through private conversations,” said the commissioner, who stressed that this type of alerts are essential to be able to act against online abuse.

Upon arrival at the meeting, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, advanced Spain’s support for the reform even though he was aware that it was going to be “difficult” for the position of the 27 to move forward this Thursday. “I think it is an obligation for all of us to have the necessary means to fight against a crime, a scourge, that hurts us all in a significant way,” he reasoned.

Finally, the compromise text has not gone ahead and it is now in the hands of the next presidency in office, which Poland will assume in January, to assess the situation and decide whether to immediately seek the agreement that will allow the negotiations with the European Parliament to be activated or to leave the process. file suspended due to differences.

In any case, the most reticent countries have wanted to make it clear that they support the objective of the norm to better protect minors from sexual predators on the Internet, but they warn that if the data protection and privacy rights of the minors are not guaranteed, users the new framework could fail in the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

“These controls go against Fundamental Rights, intervening in private, encrypted conversations, we believe it is the wrong path,” said Germany, who has assured that it would give the “green light immediately” if this point and the one that allows it were corrected. real-time scanning because it “puts all users under suspicion.”

Slovenia, for its part, has considered that these provisions would represent a “disproportionate interference” in the right to privacy of communications; while the Luxembourg delegation has warned that the Council’s own legal services see “risk in the undifferentiated surveillance” of the communications of all users of a service.

The initial proposal from Brussels proposes obliging online platforms to alert authorities about sexual abuse of minors committed on their social networks, as well as the creation of a European center to support the authorities in charge of processing complaints of abuse. of minors and to collect and share knowledge and good practices regarding prevention and support for victims.