EU warns urgent to patch legal gap on online child sex abuse

The European Commission on Tuesday urged EU member states and lawmakers to “dramatically speed up” work on new rules to tackle child sexual abuse material online, after an old set expired unreplaced.

A legal derogation allowing for online platforms and messaging services to voluntarily detect and report abusive images lapsed on April 3, as governments and the European parliament squabbled over an overhaul of the system.

“The co-legislators must now dramatically speed up their work” on finding a long term solution, said Guillaume Mercier, a spokesman for the commission, the European Union’s top executive body.

“We will support them in the negotiations to proceed as quickly as possible to reduce any legal gap,” he told a press conference in Brussels.

Google, Microsoft, Meta and Snapchat said in a letter last week that they would continue to “take voluntary action” and scan messages when necessary.

But they complained that the lapsing of the derogation to privacy rules, which granted them the ability to do so, clouded “the legal certainty that has helped responsible platforms try to protect our communities”.

“We are disappointed by this irresponsible failure to reach an agreement to maintain established efforts to protect children online,” the tech giants wrote.

On Tuesday, the commission declined to say whether the companies could be in breach of privacy rules for continuing to scan messages with no clear legal grounding.

“The protection of our children should not be subject to autonomous business decisions by companies, but rather be based on clear and binding rules,” Mercier said.

But Brussels is “fully committed to ensuring that detection continues to be possible”, he added.

The 27-nation EU has for years been debating the strengthening of regulations, under which online platforms and messaging services currently detect and report abusive images on a voluntary basis.

The commission proposed in 2022 to make that compulsory and also require the reporting of attempts by predators to contact minors.

Though supported by several child protection groups, the plans nicknamed “Chat Control” sparked fierce debate, with critics including the EU’s own data protection authorities saying they could pose a “disproportionate” threat to privacy.

Talks between lawmakers and member states to find a compromise failed last month and a last-ditch effort for parliament to approve a temporary extension of the existing system also fell short.