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Deutsch: Schutz der Kinder im digitalen Umfeld und Rechtsstaatlichkeit

EDRi sent a letter to the Vice-President of the European Commission, Neelie Kroes on 3 September 2012 regarding the current work in the field of protecting children in the digital environment, while respecting digital rights.

While acknowledging the good work already done in some EU projects, such as EUKidsOnline that have set a new global benchmark for thorough research in this policy area, EDRi has raised in this letter a number of concerns, previously presented in policy papers or EDRi-gram, in relation to the development of the EU child protection policy in some specific projects and especially in the CEO Coalition:

"On the most basic level, we have been unable to get a clear response from your services as to the likely relationship of the Commission with any outcomes/agreements that the industry group could produce. Does the Commission envisage verifying or confirming the legality of any outcomes? Does it envisage publicly endorsing any outcomes?

A clear position from the European Commission is crucial – it needs to take a position as to whether or not any of the envisaged measures represent restrictions on fundamental rights(...)"

EDRi also points out to the the lack of attention given to ensure the credibility of the CEO Coalition: "For such an industry-led project to be successful, as well as for the Commission's own credibility, the outcome must be above suspicion of anti-competitive machinations or vested interests. However, the way in which the working groups have been put together raises serious questions in this regard. In particular, there is a clear risk that commercial interests of certain leading companies may have, or may be perceived to have, undue influence on certain working groups."

A specific issue is identified in the promotion of widespread upload filtering using the PhotoDNA software. Thus, there has been no attempt at all to produce comprehensive analysis of the experience of the use of PhotoDNA in the United States, where it has been used for over two years, nor by Facebook in Europe, which has been using the software for one year.

"This means that we have no independent verification that the software is effective both at avoiding false negatives (letting material slip through, a particular issue when there are few samples to hand) and false positives – a concern that it will incorrectly flag irrelevant material, in particular when it is trying to detect a great many images in parallel."

Thus EDRi expressed its worries that this and other policies generated by the CEO Coalition are not subject to rigorous analysis and risk implementing policies which restrict fundamental rights and asked for reassurances that such policies will not be accepted by the European Commission within the context of the CEO Coalition without a full analysis of both legality and respect for fundamental rights of European citizens.

The answer received from the European Commission on 8 October 2012 did not specifically clarify the EC position vis-à-vis the CEO Coalition and stated that they are committed to evidence-based policy: "EU-Kids Online (which we continue to fund) is one key element, but other sources including inputs from NGOs and from monitoring agreements such as the SNS Principles were also instrumental in defining the specific actions for the CEO Coalition – bearing in mind that these focused on short term goals where progress could be expected to be made. Our policies as reflected in the Communication on making a better internet for children are much wider than the work of the CEO Coalition and we trust that under Connecting Europe Facility – subject to positive decision in the context of the Multiannual Financial Framework negotiations – we will continue to maintain a strong focus on research and evidence building."

EDRi Letter to Commissioner Kroes (3.09.2012)
http://edri.org/files/kroes_final_child_policy.pdf

Answer from European Commission on EDRi letter (8.10.2012)
http://edri.org/files/Letter_17_09_20121.pdf

EDRi-gram: The rise of the European upload filter (20.06.2012)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.12/the-rise-of-the-european-uplo...

CEO Coalition to make the Internet a better place for kids (14.03.2012)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.5/ceo-coalition-freedom-of-speec...