{"id":447880,"date":"2026-03-17T19:10:50","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T18:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/03\/17\/abusi-sessuali-sui-minori-online-scontro-in-ue-su-mancata-proroga-alla-segnalazione-volontaria\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T19:51:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T18:51:37","slug":"online-child-sexual-abuse-eu-row-over-failure-to-extend-voluntary-reporting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/03\/17\/online-child-sexual-abuse-eu-row-over-failure-to-extend-voluntary-reporting\/","title":{"rendered":"Online child sexual abuse: EU row over failure to extend voluntary reporting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 The option to voluntarily identify child sexual abuse material online will end on 3 April. Talks between the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union on a temporary extension of the current derogation from the e-Privacy Regulation\u2014which allows for the voluntary online identification of child sexual abuse material in derogation from certain privacy protection rules\u2014have come to nothing. “Voluntary scanning by providers to combat the spread of child sexual abuse material online will no longer be possible<\/strong>“, thundered<\/a> Birgit Sippel<\/strong>, MEP for the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D). And \u201cit is a shame that last night the Parliament and the Council failed to reach an agreement on the extension of the provisional regulation, despite our willingness to negotiate constructively,\u201d she pointed out, criticising the \u201clack of flexibility\u201d on the part of Member States. <\/p>\n

More specifically, MEPs felt that “it was essential that child sexual abuse material that had already been identified or reported remained accessible and usable by law enforcement agencies<\/strong>.” However, \u201cas regards previously unknown material and the phenomenon of online grooming, the Commission\u2019s reports on the implementation of the measures do not provide clear evidence of their effectiveness; Parliament has therefore called for a more targeted approach,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Regulation 1307 of 2024<\/a> concerns the fight against online sexual abuse of children and amends the previous regulation, dating from 2021, on a temporary derogation from certain provisions regarding the use of technologies by communications service providers. In effect, it allowed communications service providers to use certain technologies to identify and report child abuse, by way of derogation from the Directive (2002\/58\/EC) on data privacy. This derogation was defined by the 2024 Regulation as an “exceptional nature<\/strong>” measure, precisely to avoid setting a precedent, with the expiry date set <\/span>at 3 April 2026<\/strong>. However, the “long-term legal framework” proposed by the Commission in 2022 has not yet been approved, creating a race against time. The Parliament had been ready to negotiate the permanent regulatory framework since November 2023<\/a>, and
\nsince the Council adopted its position in November 2025<\/a>, negotiations on the permanent legislation have been ongoing.<\/p>\n

The difference between the two institutions\u2019 positions lies in the <\/span>balance between child safety and the protection of users\u2019 privacy, with differing approaches to the scope of monitoring and the protection of communications.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n

The European Parliament’s plenary session approved on 11 March<\/a> the proposal by the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) to extend the derogation until 3 August 2027, so as to allow more time to reach an agreement on the long-term legal framework to prevent and combat online sexual abuse of children, and reiterated its preference for a a <\/span>targeted and proportionate measures approach.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n

Trilogues\u2014that is, meetings between EU institutions to finalise the text\u2014are currently underway. As stated in its agreed position of November 2023, the European Parliament believes that the technology used for the voluntary detection of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) should apply only to material already identified as such or reported as potential CSAM<\/strong> by a user, a trusted flagger or an organisation. Furthermore, the measures should be targeted at specific users or groups of users identified by a judicial authority as reasonably suspected of being linked to CSAM. This is because the European Parliament\u2019s priority is to guarantee the general privacy of all users and to avoid mass surveillance. The<\/span> Council,in its position adopted in November 2025<\/a>, <\/span><\/span><\/b>proposes to make the voluntary screening of messages by companies<\/b> a permanent measure<\/strong>, with an obligation to prevent such offences by applying risk categories (high, medium, low) to services. “The relevant national authorities\u2014as stated in the press release\u2014will have the power to compel companies to remove content and block access to it or, in the case of search engines, to remove search results from the list,” with penalties for non-compliant companies. <\/span><\/span>Both institutions also agree on the creation of an <\/span>EU Centre for Child Protection tasked with supporting service providers and national authorities <\/span>in identifying and reporting child sexual abuse material online and in enforcing sanctions. <\/span><\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

Work on permanent and more comprehensive rules to combat the sexual abuse of children online is therefore underway. And the co-legislators hope to reach an agreement by the end of June, when the current Cypriot Presidency of the Council of the EU concludes. Despite the suspension of the voluntary self-reporting scheme after 3 April, Sippel is looking ahead, emphasising that the fight against child sexual abuse material must now shift to other fronts: “With the expiry of the provisional regulation, the priority now is to <\/span>raise public awareness, strengthen law enforcement agencies and their capacity to combat the dissemination of child sexual abuse material online in a proportionate manner, and <\/span>remind service providers of their responsibilities and the need to cooperate with civil society and law enforcement agencies.”<\/span><\/b><\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/b><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Negotiations between Parliament and the Council on extending the legislation have come to nothing. MEP Sippel said: “Voluntary screening by providers to combat the spread of child sexual abuse material online will no longer be possible”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7901,"featured_media":221863,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29788],"tags":[26001,31428,27282,26408,33394],"class_list":["post-447880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diritti-en","tag-council-en","tag-pedopornography-en","tag-privacy-en","tag-socialisti-e-democratici-en","tag-ue"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7901"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447880"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":447881,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447880\/revisions\/447881"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}