EU plans for Legislation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse

Child sexual abuse is a real and growing danger. More and more often, abusers use the internet to communicate with each other, share materials, and reach out to children. Predators take photos and videos of the abuse they commit in real life and share them through the internet. They use webcams, mobile phones, social media or other online platforms to coerce or blackmail children into inappropriate and illegal sex acts.

In many cases, the abuse comes to light only when the actions of perpetrators are detected online. Online service providers play an essential role in reporting online child sexual abuse. Unfortunately, the current system of voluntary reporting is not effective enough. A total of 95% of all reports currently come from one single service provider (Meta). The EU Commission wants to make it mandatory for all tech companies in Europe to detect and report child sexual abuse online to the authorities.

To address this global problem, the EU has proposed legislation that will help us to find, report, and prevent cases of online child sexual abuse and to support victims. We are all responsible to keep our children safe from sexual predators.

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