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Through a joint report, the European data protection authorities are concerned and criticize the measures put in place by the European Commission to fight against child pornography content on the Internet.
The protection of children on the internet risks putting personal data at risk © Pexels
In 2021, 85 million images and videos of abused children were circulating on the internet. To fight both against exposure to its images, but also to reduce the number of child victims, the European Commission published last April a text resulting from more than a year of debate.
This text proposes to further control the content published on the internet, but also wishes to infiltrate private conversations to protect against certain sexual predators. While the initiative is clearly laudable and necessary, the manner of proceeding worries the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) and the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS).
Fear of widespread surveillance
They consider that “the proposal, in its current form, may pose more risk to individuals, and by extension to society as a whole, than to criminals prosecuted“. In a joint report published on July 29, the two European authorities denounce the dangerousness of such a device: “There is a risk that the proposal will become the basis for widespread and indiscriminate scanning of the content of virtually all types of electronic communications.“
These orders can in fact even harm those they seek to protect.
The EDPB and the EDPS therefore call for a clarification of the methods and ask for security guarantees with respect to personal data. For Wojciech Wiewiórowski, the European Data Protection Supervisor, “measures allowing public authorities to have access to the content of communications, in a generalized way, affect the essence of the right to privacy”.
The biggest blame concerns above all the control of private communications which, under the guise of protecting minors, could lead to mass control and analysis of the private lives of millions of young Internet users.
Protect some, endanger others?
These protective measures could ultimately reap an inevitable backfire, and put the inhabitants of the Old Continent all the more in danger. It is clear to Ventsislav Karadjov, Vice President of the European Data Protection Board, that “as currently proposed, these orders may in fact even harm those they seek to protect. They could lead to a substantial degradation of the confidentiality of communications, which would expose children using these services to surveillance or eavesdropping.”
In a world where technology is evolving to assist law enforcement, data protection is a key issue. Of course, the safety of children on the internet is also a priority, but it cannot be done at the expense of the defense of individuals. It is not uncommon for action taken against one hazard to lead to another.
In a similar register, the association La Quadrature du Net had already protested recently about the monitoring of social networks, and the excesses that this can cause, in the context of investigations against tax evasion.