EU wants blocking agreement for child porn websites
June 11, 2012
The Council of the European Union agreed on Friday to create a Global
Alliance against Child Sexual Abuse Online that envisages blocking
websites "where appropriate."
The aim of this alliance is to get political commitment from
countries around the world to take action against child sexual abuse
online. But the text suggests "facilitating measures to remove or, where
appropriate, block websites containing child pornography," causing some
digital civil liberties groups to question whether there are sufficient
safeguards to prevent the blocking of legitimate content.
"The inclusion of blocking in the text indicates an expectation of
failure -- a global alliance could be expected to effectively remove,
identify and prosecute such offenses wherever the material was found,"
said European digital rights group EDRi in a statement.
EDRi says that there is no statistical information showing that
blocking provides any particular value in the protection of children and
fears that such measures could be the "thin end of the wedge" towards
blocking all sorts of Internet content.
Nonetheless the Council expects the Commission to raise the issue
with U.S. authorities at a bilateral ministerial meeting in Copenhagen
later this month.
Back to News List