The European Comission launched this Wednesday a proposal for new rules to force Internet access service providers to detect, report and remove child pornography content from their networks.
The plan includes the implementation of a European center to combat child sexual abuse, based in The Hague and working in conjunction with the European police agency Europol.
“We are not getting successfully defend our children“, warned the European Commissioner for Internal Affairs, Ylva Johansson, when presenting the proposal.
Currently, Internet service providers are trying to control the dissemination of pedophile material on a voluntary basis, but with the proposals launched this Wednesday, Brussels seeks to make them more proactive in identifying such content.
The new rules will operate in parallel and in support of the regulation strategy in the EU Digital Services Lawwhich will introduce big fines for companies that fail to act on illegal content.
In 2021, 85 million videos and photos involving abused minors were reported, according to data from the United States Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
“And that’s just the tip of the iceberg,” said Johansson.
According to the European Commission, there were 95 reports of illegal content involving child sexual abuse on Facebook’s social network and messaging system, but the problem is not limited to a single platform, Johansson said.