EDPB AND EDPS criticise the Commission’s Proposal to combat child sexual abuse online

In May 2022, the European Commission published its proposal on combating child sexual abuse material. The Commission justified the need for this proposal with the alleged insufficiency of voluntary detection carried out by companies. Recently, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) and European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) have issued a joint statement criticizing the proposal on privacy grounds.

According to the proposal, hosting services and communication services would be obliged to identify, remove and report online child pornography. This, in turn, requires that encrypted messages can be screened. In other words, the actual text messages are to be read in order to detect grooming.

In their joint criticism, the EDPB and EDPS highlight that such an AI based system will most likely result into errors and false positives.

EDPS Supervisor, Wojciech Wiewiórowski, said: “Measures allowing public authorities to have access to the content of communications, on a generalised basis, affect the essence of the right to private life. Even if the technology used is limited to the use of indicators, the negative impact of monitoring the text and audio communications of individuals on a generalised basis is so severe that it cannot be justified under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The proposed measures related to the detection of solicitation of children in interpersonal communication services are extremely concerning.”