Ref. Ares(2022)5039016 - 11/07/2022
Meeting with
, Microsoft
18 May 2022
and the effectiveness of such efforts vary greatly from company to company. In addition,
current action lacks harmonised safeguards, including transparency. This may interfere
with users’ rights, including those of privacy and data protection.
The upcoming proposal will define the role of the EU Centre to prevent and combat child
sexual abuse.
European Centre to prevent and counter child sexual abuse
The need of an EU Centre, established in the EU and operating according to EU rules,
featured prominently in negotiations of the interim derogation from the ePrivacy Directive
as agreed in April 2021.
The centre as currently envisaged would have three major roles: support efforts on
prevention, improve assistance to victims, support detection, report and remove CSA
online.
The detection and reporting role is key given the international cooperation dimension. In
this regard an EU Centre could:
eliminate the need for international transfers of personal data of EU citizens
support detection by, for example, maintaining a database of child sexual abuse
hashes to reliably enable detection of child sexual abuse as defined by EU rules, rather
than rely on what is criminalised under US law as is currently the case.
It will also function as an important safeguard, as a source of information on what is
defined as child sexual abuse according to EU rules, ensure visibility on the effectiveness
of detection measures, and transparency and accountability of the process.
The centre would serve as an expert hub for all aspects of prevention and victim support,
and engage with counterparts such as NCMEC in the US, the Australian Centre to
Counter Child Exploitation, and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.
Microsoft’s contribution to the fight against child sexual abuse
Microsoft has a long-standing commitment to combat child sexual abuse and has
developed and shared PhotoDNA, an image-identification technology used to detect CSA
material. Microsoft, in collaboration with Roblox, the Meet Group, Kik and Thorn, in 2018
started working on the development of a grooming detection tool called ‘project Artemis’.
Contact – briefing contribution:
Topics for discussion
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