EU Parliament agrees on position for "chat control"
The responsible committee of the EU Parliament has agreed on its position for the controversial "chat control" to combat sexual violence against children. A balance must be struck between the necessary fight against child abuse and the avoidance of general surveillance of the internet, MEPs announced in Brussels on Tuesday.
Last year, the EU Commission presented a proposal for a regulation to curb the spread of images depicting the sexual abuse of children. Critics use the buzzword "chat control" for this. They see this as an attempt to scan all online communication, including encrypted messages, and fear mass surveillance. The proposal envisaged that providers such as Google or Facebook could, under certain circumstances, be obliged to use software to search their services for such content.
MEPs now want to tone down the proposal in some areas, for example, the end-to-end encryption of chats should not be cracked. If no objections are raised at next week's plenary session in Strasbourg, there will be no need for a vote and negotiations with the EU member states could begin. However, they have not yet found a common position, partly due to concerns expressed by Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP).
The EU Parliament's stance on the proposal aims to combat child abuse while avoiding broader Internet surveillance, focusing on unlawful content rather than encrypted chats. Despite the EU Commission's proposal to necessitate providers to search for such content under certain circumstances, MEPs insist on preserving end-to-end encryption for chats, as part of their amendments to the legislation within the EU.
Source: www.dpa.com
