ВД Ref. Ares(2023) 1162094- 17/02/2023
                                                                                            Ref. Ares(2023)1356243  - 23/02/2023




To:
Subject:                                Flash note: COMECE Legal Affairs Commission, 29 September 2022

COMECE Legal Affairs Commission, 29 September 2022

Chair of the meeting

Meeting under Chatham House rules, following the presentation of an overview of the proposal as
attached, there were short interventions from meeting respondents:




Main points of response
   • Reference to a 2017 technical paper resulting from a conference on Child Dignity in the Digital
       World, and ongoing canvassing of Member State politicians re concerns relating to pro-privacy,
       pro-encryption arguments against CSAM detection and content moderation relating to
       grooming, regarding latter considers these areas public spaces and should be subject to
       safeguards as apply in real world, considered arguments of detection tech used for non-CSAM
       purposes as unfounded considering the manifestly illegal nature of CSA compared to other
       forms of illegal content
   • Interested to receive comms materials to continue to advocate on behalf of Proposal, and to
       communicate with the general public in terms of the need for offline protections to be extended
       to the digital environment
   • Reference to circumstances in IE where several inquiries eventually led to the Church's 2005
       publication, Our Children, Our Church, which in turn led to the development of 7 standards of
       safeguarding practice in 2009 which placed a greater focus on supporting the victim of abuse
       and the development of a consistent pastoral response, more recent is the 2020 Safe Ministry
       Online developed in response to the Covid crisis, and which includes detailed guidance on
       managing risk
    •      Reference to a GDPR issue that prevents non-statutory bodies on sharing information on at-risk
           priests moving from parish to parish, and where the National Board set up as a central body to
           coordinate such information sharing is without a legal basis to access case files

Questions/contributions from the floor
   • Does the Proposal provide for redress/appeal of Orders
   • Need to promote legal arguments for Proposal to governments and tech industry and to address
       seeming assertions of absolute rights which trump those of children's rights, and identify
       restrictions necessary in a democratic society, e.g. holocaust denial, and denial of Armenian
       genocide, in order to demonstrate how and where Fundamental Rights must be balanced with a
       duty to protect children
    •      Can the Proposal provide for a greater role for parents beyond that referred to at Recital 16
           (reference to parental controls in context of Safety-by-Design)