Complementary Impact Assessment of the proposed Regulation to combat Child Sexual Abuse

The European Commission presented a proposal for a regulation laying down rules to prevent and combat child sexual abuse on 11 May 2022. In this legislative proposal, the European Commission puts forward a set of clear, uniform, and balanced EU rules that provide obligations for information society services to screen the dissemination of CSAM on their services and, in the case of detection, reporting and removing it.

Ecorys conducted a complementary impact assessment on the Commission’s proposal, on request of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE committee). The study discusses amongst others, the potential and limitations of the proposal in protecting children from harm on the internet. Furthermore, it assesses the proposal from a fundamental rights angle. The latter concerns an assessment of whether the proposed legislation strikes a fair balance between protecting the fundamental rights of children and safeguarding the privacy rights of users of online services.

For more information, please read the final report (pdf).