EU: Live streaming of child sexual violence to be criminalized

On Friday, the EU Council of Ministers adopted its position on a draft reform of Community criminal law in the area of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children. The revised regulations are intended to extend the definition of the relevant criminal offenses throughout the EU. In doing so, the government representatives want to ensure that all relevant forms of such offences are criminalized. This also explicitly applies to offenses that are enabled or facilitated by new online tools.

For example, the Council's position would oblige member states to introduce a criminal offense for the live streaming of child sexual abuse. Prosecutors would then have to investigate accordingly. The ministerial committee also justified this by stating that "recently, money has increasingly been paid" for access to broadcasts of such acts in real time. The G7 interior ministers already agreed in 2022 that "sexual exploitation and abuse of children and human trafficking" were intertwined in live streaming. They considered it crucial to work together with the tech and financial sectors to advance solutions and measures to combat such crimes and thus stop payments.

Criminal liability for AI-generated images of abuse

With the amendment to the relevant directive, the Council also wants to ensure that artificially generated but realistic depictions of child sexual abuse are included in the definition of a criminal offense. This is intended to enable a better response to the increasing emergence of deepfakes and AI-generated depictions of abuse.

In Germany, fictional depictions of abuse and poses as well as relevant texts are already relevant under criminal law. In addition to realistic drawings, these include modified representations of comic formats, mangas and hentais. However, there has hardly been any case law on AI-generated depictions of abuse to date, legal politicians have recently expressed concern. The mere production of such material could remain unpunished.

The EU governments have also introduced a criminal offense for giving instructions on child sexual abuse or contacting children for sexual purposes (grooming). Anyone who distributes and creates instructions for such acts, whether in the form of a leaflet, book or online guide – and thereby aids and abets them would be liable to prosecution.

Paving the way for negotiations with Parliament

The penalties for many of the relevant offenses are to be increased. For example, anyone who abuses a particularly weak position of a child – in particular due to a disability – would be subject to a maximum prison sentence of at least ten years according to the draft. The current sentence is eight years. Member States are allowed to provide for even stricter penalties in their national legislation. It should also be easier to report relevant crimes online and to prosecute them for a sufficiently long period after the victim has reached the age of majority. A minimum of ten years is envisaged, or 20 years for particularly serious offenses.

With the Council's position, the government representatives can now in principle begin negotiations with the EU Parliament to reach an agreement on a final directive. However, the MEPs still have to define their course. On the other hand, the Council was unable to agree on a line on the highly controversial chat control. This monitoring initiative also runs under the banner of the fight against sexual abuse. With opposition from Germany, Belgium, Poland, the Czech Republic, Finland and Austria, for example, there was still a blocking minority against the Hungarian Council Presidency's latest draft, according to which audio messages, for example, should not be scanned.

(vbr)