By  Jelle van Buuren
April 5, 2000
(http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/5976/1.html)
 

Special police units in every EU country should systematically scan the internet for child pornography
material, says Parliament's Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs. Next monday, parliament will vote on the proposals of the Committee.

The report of the Committee is written in the light of a draft Council decision Austria proposed last year. This draft decision is designed to facilitate the detection and prosecution of offences involving child pornography on the internet. It wants Internet users to be encouraged to inform police when they come across child pornography, special units to be set up within law enforcements authorities, rapid action to be taken when child pornography material is reported and wide-ranging cooperation
between Member States and Europol.

The Committee is in support of the proposed Council decision, but felt it should be more binding and that the measures proposed should not be left to Member States' discretion. The Committee also thinks that police should take a more active approach. It is not enough to react to offences that have already come to light. Therefore, the Committee wants special units that sytematically scan the internet for child pornography material. The Member States must therefore be required to establish a
legal base allowing the law enforcement authorities to scan the internet for child pornography material, according to the report.

The Committee also proposes that providers be compelled to enable e-mail users to be identified. The report says: "The possibility of sending anonymous e-mails which even the authorities cannot trace back to their senders makes prosecution impossible." Providers have to store traffic-related data for at least three months, the report goes on, in accordance with the Council Resolution of 17 january 1995 on the lawfull interception of telecommunications. The traffic-related data must be "made available for inspection by the criminal prosecution authorities." The report says it is necesarry, in order to facilitate prosecution, "to specify a minimum period for the retention of traffic-related data."

The Committee wants the establishment of national registers in the Member States, listing all persons convicted of child pornography or other forms of child abuse. This information should be accessible to all Member States and Europol. Contact points manned around the clock should facilitate the information exchange. "As the internet ignores national boundaries, those tracking down internet crime must also be able to cross them," the report says.

There is a clear need to take action, says the Committee. Child pornography can be distributed via the internet free of charge and in unlimited quantity. There is no need to seek secure and suitable advertising media, freight routes and charges are elemininated, as is the risk of carriage across borders. "Nowhere can suppliers act with such a flexibility as on the internet," the report says.

The advice of the European Parliament is not binding. The Council of Justice and Home Affairs takes the final decision on the draft decision.