Criticism that the EU is trying to monitor the general public in the name of protecting children from sexual abuse

In May 2022, the European Commission, the EU's policy enforcement body, said in May 2022, 'Service providers will send a user's message to CSAM (Child Sexuality) in response to a request from a public agency for the purpose of preventing child sexual abuse online. Abuse material) Proposed a regulation that 'is obliged to scan'. However, the regulation is flooded with criticism from experts, saying it is 'civilian surveillance.' Meanwhile, Matthias, co-founder of German encrypted email service Tutanota, has strongly criticized the European Commission, saying, 'There is no reason for CSAM scans to contribute to the crackdown on child pornography.'

CSAM Scanning: EU Commission's lies uncovered --Surveillance will not save the children.
https://tutanota.com/blog/posts/eu-csam-scanning/

Read the following articles to learn more about the EU's mandatory CSAM scans and their criticisms.

Experts blame EU plans for 'scanning encrypted private messages' to prevent child sexual abuse-GIGAZINE

The European Commission has made the following three claims in a public debate regarding the mandatory SCAM scan.

1: One in five children living in the EU is sexually abused.
2: AI-based surveillance does not undermine our right to privacy and saves our children.
3: 90% of CSAM is hosted on European servers.

'I agree that child abuse is a big problem and that politics needs to do a lot to protect the weakest children in society,' said Matthias. Scan criticizes the EU as only a system for monitoring the general public.

Matthias points out that there are no statistics to support the European Commission's official website claim that 'one in five people is sexually abused.' The World Health Organization (WHO) has shown data that '9.6% of children in Europe are sexually abused,' and Matthias said the European Commission may be exaggerating the numbers. increase. However, even if the numbers are inflated, many children are still sexually abused, so the EU says it is not wrong to take action to stop sexual abuse.

'70% -85% of children know the perpetrators of sexual abuse. The majority of children are victims of those they trust,' Matthias said on the official website of the European Commission. 'Does a CSAM scan of every message help prevent sexual abuse in homes, sports clubs and churches?'

'We should look at existing surveillance data to see if monitoring private messages can help address child sexual abuse,' Matthias said. According to Matthias, among the cases where Tutanota received a communication monitoring order from the court in 2021, one case was related to child pornography, accounting for 1.3% of the total. More than two-thirds of the cases that actually received communication monitoring orders were related to ransomware.

In addition, according to data released by the German Federal Ministry of Justice in 2019, more than 47.3% of telecommunications surveillance cases were related to drug crimes, and child pornography was related to 21 cases, which is 0.1% of the total. It was said that. From this, Matthias argues that 'strengthening message surveillance does not play a major role in hunting down perpetrators of child sexual abuse.'

Matthias also points out that the European Commission's claim that '90% of CSAMs are hosted on European servers' is not justified.

Eco , the organization promoting the removal of CSAM, also said, 'Our view is that the European Commission's draft may give the government a free pass for surveillance. This is inefficient and illegal. In order to sustainably protect children, we first need to increase the number of personnel for investigation and prosecution . ' A law enforcement official who has been involved in child abuse investigations in Germany for many years also said, 'If the number of cases increases and the number of perpetrators increases, there is no need to violate basic rights like the CSAM scan.' increase.

Finally, Matthias said, 'It is unbelievable that the Commission will fuel public opinion in favor of the CSAM scan with these exaggerations. The Commission has argued in Europe that it will protect children from sexual abuse. It seems to be used for the cause of introducing a surveillance system like China, but Europe is not China. '