Medlemsmøte 25. 01 – Ensuring child safety through the monitoring of private communications: does the end justify the means?

Child sexual abuse online is a serious and heinous crime which children are increasingly being exposed to. As a response to this, in May 2022, the European Commission published a Proposal for a Regulation laying down rules to prevent and combat child sexual abuse (CSA Regulation).^[2] The Proposal would impose qualified obligations on providers of hosting services, interpersonal communication services and other services concerning the proactive detection, reporting, removing and blocking of known and new online child sexual abuse material, as well as grooming on their services, through the use of hashing technologies and AI tools.

While enabling effective action to combat child sexual abuse online is an objective of general interest, the measures contained in the Proposal would affect the exercise of the fundamental rights to privacy, data protection and freedom of expression of the users of the services at issue. This warrants an assessment of whether the Proposal strikes a fair balance between the means to be used and the intended aim, as well as whether the envisaged interference with fundamental rights meets the applicable necessity and proportionality standards.

Luca’s presentation outlines and explores these issues, also drawing from his experience as lead rapporteur of the EDPB-EDPS Joint Opinion 4/2022 on the CSA Regulation.^[3]

Luca Tosoni is Specialist Director at the international affairs department of the Norwegian Data Protection Authority (Datatilsynet). In that capacity, Luca regularly contributes to the workings of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), and is involved in cross-border investigations. Within the EDPB, Luca has led or contributed to the drafting of several binding decisions, guidelines and opinions, including as lead rapporteur of the EDPB-EDPS Joint Opinion 4/2022 on the CSA Regulation.^[1] He has also been appointed as the EDPB representative to the Advisory Group of the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA).

Luca is a dual-qualified lawyer, in Italy and Belgium, and prior to joining Datatilsynet he has practiced law in a top-tier international law firm in Brussels. He holds a PhD in law from the University of Oslo.

Dato og tid: 25. januar kl. 17:15

Sted: Domus Academica auditorium 5

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