Dr Stephan Dreyer has given the
Science Media Center Germany (SMC) a legal assessment of the EU Commission's proposal for a regulation to identify and report depictions of child sexual abuse. The legislative proposal contains many improvements in the fight against depictions of abuse on the internet, but also some approaches that need to be discussed.
The regulation requires providers who are affected to check and, if necessary, report messages sent via their services - a process that also became known as chat control in the context of this law. Messages are to be checked on the end devices of the users before they are sent. The bill leaves open how exactly this verification is to be technically regulated.
"If the ordinance were to come into force in this form, it must be pointed out, irrespective of the encroachment on the human rights of many blameless users, that large professional exchange rings and forums for abuse representations would not be affected by it," says Stephan Dreyer. "They have moved into corners of the net that make it much more difficult to detect and prosecute them. The criminals operating on large hosting and messaging platforms would indeed be easier to detect with the regulation - if they do not migrate to other parts of the net first.”
You can read more statements by Stephan Dreyer and other experts on the
SMC website (in German).
