The Czech Pirate Party, part of the country’s ruling coalition, has warned against the European Commission’s proposal aimed at curbing child sexual abuse online, claiming that it introduces blanket control over private online conversations.
The Commission’s proposal includes measures that would screen content shared online, from private messages to voicemails to photos, but the Pirates believe this approach will not solve the problem but rather grossly violate the privacy of all EU citizens.
“This well-intentioned proposal entails an unacceptable intrusion into the privacy of all citizens,” said the Pirates’ leader and Deputy Prime Minister for Digitalisation and Minister for Regional Development Ivan Bartoš.
While the government will discuss the proposal on Wednesday, the Pirates intend to push for a rejection at the Council level.
“With the Pirates, we unequivocally support the fight against child sexual abuse. However, it is necessary to act effectively, to really protect children, but not in this ineffective way and at the expense of the loss of privacy of all of us on the Internet,” Bartoš added.
According to a report by the US organisation RAINN, 85 million photos and videos depicting child abuse were posted online last year alone. Of these, 60% were hosted on servers in the EU.
But the Pirates argue that the Commission’s proposal automatically makes every Internet user a suspect and de facto abolishes the concept of privacy in the online space.
The proposal is also being discussed in the European Parliament.
“In the European Parliament, we are trying to bone up on the legislation as much as possible. It looks like it will be possible to make the regulation at least not apply to audio calls or conversations with end-to-end encryption,” said Czech Pirate MEP Marcel Kolaja.
(Aneta Zachová | Euractiv.cz)
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