SCENE SETTER
You will visit Dublin where you will meet
and other Internet companies and discuss
how to more effectively prevent and
combat child sexual abuse online. You will also visit
the
Google’s Safety Engineering Centre. These efforts are a continuation of your Mission
to Silicon Valley that took place between 27-28 January. The aim is to discuss collaboration
with companies in view of the forthcoming proposal for a regulation on preventing and
combating child sexual abuse.
Contact(s) – briefing coordination: Xxx (CAB), tel.:
Contact(s) – briefing contribution:
Page
2 of
30
1- Key messages for meetings with
and
visit to Google’s Safety Engineering Centre
x Highlight the importance of protecting children on the internet.
x Convey an overview of the European Commission’s efforts to fight CSA, namely the
new proposal that is expected to be presented at the end of March and the creation of
a new EU Centre to prevent and combat child sexual abuse;
x Note that the legislative proposal is an opportunity to make a significant, long-lasting
positive change in the fight against CSA in the EU (and globally, given the cross-
border nature of the crime).
x Outline the main elements planned:
o enabling companies to do their part by
mandating them to detect, report
and remove child sexual abuse online,
o establishing
an
EU centre to prevent and combat child sexual abuse: This
EU Centre will provide reliable information on what is illegal in the EU and on
available tools to detect CSA online, to facilitate the work of companies in
detection, reporting and removal of CSA online. It will also receive the reports
from companies, analyse them and provide them to the competent national
law enforcement authorities and Europol. In addition, the Centre will also act
as a
hub of expertise for all aspects of
prevention and victim support,
supporting Member States, and cooperate with similar Centres around the
globe;
o establishing
safety by design obligations without hampering innovation.
x Reiterate the importance of companies’ role in preventing and combating child sexual
abuse,
x Acknowledge the good work they are already doing, also through the Tech Coalition,
and call for their continued commitment and increased efforts to fight these crimes.
x
Safety by design is key: there should be a regular check on what more could be
done to incorporate features in products that safeguard children in the online space
and prevent risky situations, before the products are put in the market. The well-being
of children should be a key concern from the initial design stage of any product.
x Looking ahead,
encryption remains a key issue. We need to make sure that
detection, removal and reporting of child sexual abuse is possible in an effective
manner even if end-to-end encryption is put in place.
Page
4 of
30
Pages 5-6 redacted - out of scope
3- Site visit- Google’s Safety Engineering Centre
Scene setter
Google and YouTube are investing in transparency and building up tools to protect privacy
and security. They plan to achieve this through Safety Engineering Centres focused on
tackling key issues. The first Centre opened in Munich and targeted building tools to protect
privacy and security. A second centre was opened in Dublin in 2021 looking at ways to tackle
illegal and harmful content online, and plans are in the pipeline for a third centre to launch in
Malaga in 2022 focused on cybersecurity. The aim of these centres is to bring together the
best possible technical expertise and share the work with policymakers, researchers and
regulators.
Main objective
x Gain insight into the initiatives that Google’s Safety Engineering Centre is taking
forward to combat and prevent child sexual abuse.
x
Encourage further collaborative efforts, in particular in the context of the future EU
Centre for combating and preventing child sexual abuse.
Line to take
x Reiterate the Commission’s commitment to combat child sexual abuse and highlight the
important role that companies have to make sure that children are kept safe online.
x Welcome Google’s efforts to create a Safety Engineering Centre targeting illegal content
online. Combating child sexual abuse requires a comprehensive and transparent
response that brings to the table all the key stakeholders. Highlight the Commission’s
willingness to continue collaborating closely with Google.
x Inform of the Commission’s efforts in this area, in particular the new proposal that is
expected to be presented at the end of March this year, and the creation of the EU
Centre to prevent and combat child sexual abuse. Note that this is an opportunity to bring
about significant and long-lasting positive changes both in the EU and globally.
Pages 8-12 redacted - out of scope
Page
7 of
30
x
And the Digital Service Act (DSA), on which the trilogues will start in the first half of 2022,
also introduces a series of measures to reduce the prevalence of illegal content
online.
The EU Centre
x The upcoming proposal will also pave the way for establishing the
EU Centre to prevent
and combat child sexual abuse, to facilitate the work of:
o companies in detection, reporting and removal of CSA online;
o law enforcement in following up with the reports from companies;
o Member
States
in
prevention and assistance to victims
o partners outside of the EU, given the global nature of these crimes, working
closely with similar centres around the world (e.g. US, Australia and Canada).
x The centre could support detection, by maintaining a
database of CSA indicators
(e.g. hashes) that would reliably enable the detection of what is defined as CSA
according to EU rules. It would facilitate access to reliable tools for companies to
use. And, most importantly, it would receive and swiftly analyse and allocate reports
of CSA – a service for which we currently have to rely on the United States.
x The centre would also act as a hub of expertise to support Member States on
prevention and victim support.
x The centre will be a key component of the legislation, ensuring transparency and
accountability and being an essential safeguard of the process to detect, report and
remove child sexual abuse online.
x It could be a counterpart for similar entities around the world, boosting operation and
sharing of experience and best practices globally.
Safety by design to safeguard children online
x The EU Strategy further highlights the importance of
industry taking responsibility for the
protection of children in their products. I fully share your approach of ‘
safety by design’,
in particular when it comes to online services that may be used by children.
Page
14 of
30
Other initiatives
x The
EU Internet Forum is an important initiative which brings together industry and
ministers of interior of all Member States to coordinate action in this area. One key
example is the expert process with industry, academia, public authorities and civil society
organisations, to identify technical solutions that would allow companies to detect CSA in
end-to-end encrypted electronic communications whilst still safeguarding fundamental
rights. This is a process that still requires further exploration, and it remains a very
sensitive issue.
x We are setting up a
prevention network composed of experts and practitioners, which
will have the Centre as its hub. We want experts to exchange what is working well, to
learn from one another, and to all improve jointly when it comes to preventing these
crimes.
Defensives
Why has the Commission not yet proposed the long-term legislation, which was
originally announced for June?
x The Commission remains committed to the long-term legislation, which is currently being
prepared by Commission services. The later than expected adoption of the interim
Regulation also delayed preparation of the long-term legislation. The Commission now
expects to propose the long-term legislation in March 2022.
What is being done relating to prevention?
x We will work together with all relevant actors from the public and private sectors, within
and outside the EU, to increase cooperation and exchange of best practices under the
prevention network of practitioners and researchers. The EU centre to prevent and
counter CSA will have a key role in boosting prevention efforts. It will support and
cooperate with the prevention network, but also act as counterpart for similar centre
globally.
x We are also working to improve the protection of children from sexual abuse globally by
supporting and cooperating with the WeProtect Global Alliance; some activities of which
are financed by ISF.
x In addition, we will also continue to provide funding to support initiatives aiming to
enhance prevention.
Page
15 of
30
Pages 16-21 redacted - out of
scope
In November 2021, the ECPAT network on ending the sexual exploitation of children, with
122 mostly NGO members in 104 countries, conducted a survey on public attitudes towards
privacy and child protection online in 8 Member States (DE, FR, IT, NL, PL, SE, ES, HU).
The majority of respondents indicated that:
o Detection (of CSA online) is perceived to be
as or more important than
people’s personal privacy online (76% of respondents)
o There is a
strong support for the upcoming legislative proposal on CSA
(mandatory detection by companies), even when people hear about the
possible downsides (68%)
o People believe that
kids are not safe online (73%)
o People believe that online privacy has gone (68%)
WeProtect Global Alliance-Global Threat Assessment, 2021: main findings
x Offenders continually seek new tools.
Over 56.8% of all discussion observed on known offender dark web forums was related to
new tools to evade detection and make offending more secure—with the only other two
categories being Social Media Platforms (32.8%) and Direct Messaging (10.4%).
x Masked language hides harmful content in gaming.
Veiled or hidden use of typical grooming or child sexual abuse material (CSAM) terms in
Gaming has grown over 13% in 2019-2020. This resulted in an increase of 50% additional
harmful content detected.
x Cloud
sharing
Fuels interactions with harmful content. From 2020 Q1 to 2021 Q1, instances of user
engagement or interactions with harmful content relating to CSEA exploded to nearly 20
million in Q1 2021—up significantly from more than 5.5 million in Q1 2020.
x Offenders re-traumatize survivors using fake profiles.
Many offender groups reference known CSAM survivors to indicate online preferences and
to find and network with like-minded individuals. In Q1 2021, Crisp identified 3,324 unique
pieces of posted content, each resulting in as many as 2,000 interactions. This “network
effect” illustrates the malignancy of this sharing, with each interaction perpetuating the
exploitation of the survivor referenced in the account.
US and NCMEC statistics: In 2020, there were over 21.7 million reports of suspected child
sexual exploitation made to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s
CyberTipline. Online enticement reports — which detail when someone is communicating
with a child via the internet with the intent to exploit them — increased by more than 97%
from the year before.
Half of offenders arrested for CSAM possession were or had been physically abusing
children; detection of CSAM frequently leads to stopping hands on/physical abuse
happening in parallel.
A high proportion of cases involved material depicting extreme abuse and/or large quantities
of material; viewing CSAM increases demand for more and more extreme abuse - 52.2% of
offenses included images or videos of infants or toddlers.
Safety by design to safeguard children online
Safety by design is an important preventative and proactive approach that ensures user
safety is embedded into the design, development and deployment of online digital products
and services. This approach involves consideration of age-appropriate design and access to
services that take into consideration the child users’ maturity and capacities when interacting
with technical platforms and online services.
Page
24 of
30
Pages 26-28 redacted - out of scope
ANNEXES
1. Voluntary Principles to combat child sexual abuse
