Скачать или смотреть Europe is working on stricter rules against child online abuse

The European Commission presented a bill this month with tough measures against the spread of online child abuse. The fight against child sexual abuse is a priority for the Commission. Nowadays, photos and videos of children being sexually abused are shared online on a massive scale. In 2021, there were 29 million reports submitted to the US National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children.

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Voluntary measures by tech companies against the sharing of child abuse on internet platforms are not effective enough, the Commission believes. That is why companies need to be much more active in looking for shared abuse images, for example by scanning chat messages.

Since chat apps like WhatsApp and Signal encrypt users’ messages, no one can read the conversations except the sender and receiver. This makes it very difficult for tech companies and authorities to detect illegal images. Critics say that if detours are devised, the privacy of European citizens will be at risk.

A bill is currently pending with the European Commission. The Member States and the European Parliament still have to consider the text before the law is passed.

Will I be punished if I share photos of my child in the bath on WhatsApp with my partner?
The European Commission wants to reduce the sharing of images involving child abuse. Parents who share normal photos of their children are not the target of the measure.

With a technology that client side device scanning hot, it would be possible to scan conversations for any malicious content. For this purpose, databases are used in which known abuse photos are stored.

Data from known abuse images (or texts) can be used with client side device scanning fully automated compared to shared images in chats, even if they are encrypted.

What if images are modified to stay under the radar?
The known images from the databases have a unique digital fingerprint with which they can be found. When an image is adjusted, that fingerprint also changes.

It is possible that the European Commission will go a step further by deploying some form of artificial intelligence. He can recognize patterns of child abuse and language that is part of grooming, in other words digital child lure.

What if there is doubt about the content of an image?
Detection of child pornography and abuse is always done automatically and anonymously, the Commission promises. “The very best technology ensures the highest effectiveness, while the impact on people’s privacy remains minimal.”

Human control, according to the bill, only takes place if there is evidence of child sexual abuse in a specific image, video or message. The check ensures that obviously misregistered images are not passed on to the authorities.

According to the Commission, images in which no child abuse has been found are fed back to the internet platforms. For example, detection systems have to get better and better. This could mean that human intervention is becoming less and less necessary.