Thu 25. Jul 2024, 11:42
According to a report by the German government, efforts to implement the principle of "deleting instead of blocking" continue to be successful: in 2023, almost all reported child pornography content hosted in Germany was deleted within a week.
On July 17, 2024, the Federal Government published its "Report on the measures taken in 2023 for the purpose of deleting telemedia content with child pornography content within the meaning of Section 184b of the German Criminal Code". The close cooperation between the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), the cross-state body jugendschutz.net, the complaints office of the eco Association of the Internet Industry, the complaints office of the Voluntary Self-Regulation of Multimedia Service Providers and the Federal Agency for the Protection of Children and Young Persons in the Media (BzKJ) is paying off: After a good twelve years, there is now sufficient evidence that the availability of depictions of abuse and other child/youth pornographic content can be effectively reduced by means of targeted deletion requests. In 2023, 54,613 reports of child pornography content on the internet (in Germany and abroad) were statistically recorded by the BKA and the complaints offices. 43,533 reports related to a server location in Germany and 11,080 to a foreign server location. 85.4 percent of all content in Germany was deleted after two days at the latest. One week after the information was received, the availability of the content was again significantly reduced: of 43,105 references, only 419, or 1.02 percent, were still available. Deletion abroad is more complex due to the lack of powers of the German law enforcement authorities. But here too, 57.6 percent of all content was deleted after one week, and 88.2 percent after four weeks.
The German government has high hopes for the future of the Digital Services Act (DSA). Since February 17, 2024, the DSA has also applied to all other hosting services and online platforms in addition to the very large providers and obliges them to provide a reporting and remediation procedure for illegal content. This allows individuals and institutions to report content that they consider to be unlawful. The service providers must decide on the reported content promptly, carefully, objectively and free of arbitrariness. Content that does not comply with EU law or the law of a member state is considered illegal, including child pornography as defined in Section 184b of the German Criminal Code. Service providers must prioritize the processing of reports from trustworthy whistleblowers. On May 11, 2022, the EU Commission also presented a draft regulation on preventing and combating child sexual abuse (CSA Regulation). The draft provides for obligations on online service providers to prevent and combat online abuse of children, including the obligation to delete images of abuse. A European Center for Preventing and Combating Child Sexual Abuse is to coordinate prosecution, prevention and support for victims. Negotiations on the draft regulation are ongoing.
In the fight against child sexual abuse, the deletion of reported images of abuse is part of the overall approach of the investigating authorities. Removing the material quickly prevents further dissemination. "The high deletion rates prove that the concept of 'deleting instead of blocking' continues to be effective," said Federal Minister of Justice Dr. Marco Buschmann. He thanked the participating organizations, which have an important bridging function between citizens who report child pornography content and the police: "You are helping to make the internet a safe place."
You can find the Federal Government's Annual Report 2023 at:
https://www.bmj.de/SharedDocs/Downloads ... onFile&v=2