The EU wants to better protect children from sexual violence and also want private chats to be monitored. The federal government has raised concerns. Minister of Justice Buschmann has now followed up by letter.
The EU has been negotiating legislative proposals to combat sexual abuse of children for months. She also wants to have private chats on the net checked. The federal government had expressed considerable reservations about a proposal by the EU Commission and is still demanding significant changes.
The position of the traffic light coalition on this has still not been finally clarified. In particular, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) and FDP Justice Minister Marco Buschmann have different views. But they agree on the goal: sexual abuse of children should be combated more vigorously. But there are different ideas about how this should happen.
Buschmann’s concerns
Justice Minister Buschmann has now made his position clear in a letter that he wrote together with four European colleagues and which ARD Capital Studio present.
Buschmann describes that the EU’s plans go too far and are disproportionate: Society must be better protected against surveillance without cause.
The European Commission’s plan provides that Internet companies such as Google or Meta can be obliged to search private messages of all users for illegal abuse images in a multi-stage process.
Minister of Justice Buschmann sees EU plans against abuse as disproportionate.
“Serious fundamental rights To ponder”
In their letter, Buschmann and his co-authors refer to expert opinions and studies – including those from the scientific service of the European Parliament. They come to the conclusion that the EU’s plans violate the basic rights of Internet users. In addition, they could even make the fight against sexual abuse more difficult: For example, too many false reports could burden the investigative authorities in their work.
With the letter, Buschmann also sent a message to his cabinet colleague, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser. He is aware that the interior ministers are in charge of this issue. “However, since the proposal raises serious fundamental rights concerns,” he believes it is necessary for the Minister of Justice to also get involved in the discussion.
More control or more privacy?
Roughly sketched, the line of conflict lies between stronger surveillance and the protection of private life. Interior Minister Faeser can imagine stronger interventions than Justice Minister Buschmann.
Among other things, Faeser advocates that unencrypted communication such as certain chats, e-mails or cloud services be searched, although according to the coalition agreement the traffic light rejects any scanning of private communication.
Among other things, the question of whether Internet companies should only search the data for known material or whether they should also use artificial intelligence to search for previously unknown abuse material is also controversial.