Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the ‘Proposal for a Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council on establishing a multiannual Community programme on promoting safer use of the internet and new online technologies’(COM(2004) 91 final — 2004/0023 (COD))
Date: 2004-12-16
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: EU programme, Internet, child protection, consumer protection, data protection, fight against crime, freedom of expression, information technology, new technology

C 157/136

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

28.6.2005

5.8
The EESC maintains that Regulation 4056/86 should be
repealed and substituted by a new Commission Regulation for
liner conferences granting a block exemption. The new regime
should strictly follow the yardsticks established under the juris-
prudence of the European Court of First Instance and of the
Commission (e.g. TACA case). The conference system should
also be maintained in order to defend the competitiveness of
Community shipowners worldwide. Whilst for the large carriers
‘alliances’ and other types of cooperation agreements may be
appropriate, small and medium size carriers still need confer-
ences in order to maintain their market shares especially in
trades with developing countries. The abolition of the exemp-
tion may have anticompetitive effects for these small carriers
enhancing the dominant position of the larger ones.

5.9
Commission to monitor

This interim transitional period should be used by the
liner market developments

the

Brussels, 16 December 2004

including trends of consolidation. Moreover, the Commission
should undertake consultations with other jurisdictions (OECD)
with a view to arriving at a suitable alternative system compa-
tible worldwide.

The EESC endorses proposals of

5.10
the White Paper
regarding the treatment of tramp and cabotage services since
the vast majority of cases in these sectors would not raise
competition problems. For the sake of legal certainty, however,
the Commission is
legal guidance
regarding the self assessment of bulk pools and specialized
trades regarding their compatibility with Article 81 EC.

requested to provide

5.11
The EESC hopes to provide its assistance in the follow-
up to the brainstorming exercise launched by the White Paper.

The President

of the European Economic and Social Committee

Anne-Marie SIGMUND

Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the ‘Proposal for a Decision of the
European Parliament and of the Council on establishing a multiannual Community programme on
promoting safer use of the internet and new online technologies’

(COM(2004) 91 final — 2004/0023 (COD))

(2005/C 157/24)

On 26 March 2004, the Council decided to consult the European Economic and Social Committee, under
Article 153 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the abovementioned proposal.

The Section for Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and the Information Society, which was responsible for
preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 5 October 2004. The rapporteur
was Mr Retureau and the co-rapporteur, Ms Davison.

At its 413th plenary session on 15 and 16 December 2004 (meeting of 16 December 2004), the European
Economic and Social Committee adopted the following opinion by 147 votes in favour with 1 abstention:

1. Summary of the draft opinion

The Commission proposes

to launch a new Safer
1.1
Internet Programme, which is to be enhanced to reflect the
rapid development of
the Information Society in terms of
communications networks. It has therefore been named the
Safer Internet Plus Action Plan (2005-2008).

working paper (SEC(2004) 148), and in COM(2004) 91 final. It
supports broadening the scope of the new action plan and its
objectives to reflect the rapid development and diversification
of Internet access and the very rapid growth of broadband
connections.
In its general and specific comments on the
subject, the Committee offers some additional proposals for
political and regulatory measures, in particular:

— technical and legal standards (compulsory and voluntary);

Besides the proposal for a Decision of the European
1.2
Parliament and of the Council submitted by the Commission,
the Committee has examined the ex ante evaluation of Safer
in a Commission staff
Internet Plus (2005-2008), set out

— education and training of users;

28.6.2005

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 157/137

— obligations of Internet service providers and other operators

(credit card companies, search engines, etc.);

— the responsibility of software authors and Internet security

providers;

— the protection of vulnerable individuals against fraud and
information from doubtful sources (various scams, uncon-
trolled sales of medicines, advice and treatment
from
persons without any medical authority, etc.).

2. Proposals of the Commission (summary)

2.1
The aim of the proposed programme is to promote
safer use of the Internet and online technologies for end users,
and in particular for children and young people, at home or at
school. To this end,
it is planned to co-finance projects put
forward by associations and other groups (research teams, soft-
ware designers, educational institutions, etc.), with the aim of
developing means of protection such as hotlines, spam and
virus filters, and ‘smart’ navigation filters.

The previous Safer Internet Action Plan (1999-2002)

2.2
was extended to the period 2003-2004.

The website of

2.3
the European Commission lists the
projects which had already been completed under the Safer
Internet Programme by the end of 2003. (1)

The current proposal (for 2005-2008) also covers new
2.4
forms of online communication, for which it provides support
in combating illegal and harmful content, including viruses and
other harmful or unwanted content (e.g. spam).

For the institutions of the European Union, the main

2.5
reasons why measures need to be taken in this area are:

— rapid growth in the use of high-speed and broadband
connections by individual users, businesses, government
administration and private institutions (NGOs);

— diversification of media and methods of access to the
Internet and new online content, much of which is
unwanted (e-mails, text messages), and increasingly attrac-
tive content (multimedia);

media; spam: clogs up bandwidth and memory,
invades
electronic mailboxes, with the result that effective use of
the Internet and communication is either blocked or made
more difficult, and causes significant costs, borne not by
those are responsible but by end users); some significant
categories of users, such as children, are at risk from sexu-
ally explicit spam, inappropriate messages and invitations
by paedophiles to dates in online chat rooms;

— inappropriate content easily accessible to children, due to
the limited effectiveness of current filtering systems avail-
able to those in charge of children.

2.6
The main objective of the programme is to protect chil-
dren and support those in charge of them (parents, teachers,
educators, etc.) and those defending their interests and their
moral health. The programme therefore concerns NGOs
dealing with social
racism, xeno-
phobia (2) and all other forms of discrimination, consumer
rights, the defence of civil liberties, etc.

issues, children's rights,

The programme also concerns governments, legislative,
2.7
judicial and police bodies, and regulatory authorities. Changes
need to be made both to laws and to legal procedures, and
training and equipment need to be provided for a sufficient
number of staff.

In addition,

2.8
the industry,
which needs a secure environment in order to boost consumer
confidence.

the programme concerns

2.9
Universities and researchers can shed light on how chil-
dren use the new media. The best approach to effective
communication on the issue of security is to make the public
aware of how criminals make use of the new media, to search
for new technological solutions, and to provide an independent
perspective on finding a balance between the interests affected
by regulatory and self-regulatory procedures.

it

There are two dimensions to the programme. On the
2.10
social
focuses on areas where regulation and the
front,
market are not sufficient in themselves to guarantee the safety
of users. On the economic front, it aims to promote safer use
of the Internet and online technologies by creating a climate of
confidence.

— the dramatic increase in unwanted, potentially dangerous or
inappropriate content has created new dangers for the
general public (viruses:
invade memory, abuse or destroy
data, make unauthorised use of the victim's communication

2.11
About €50 million of funding is planned to develop
legal and technological measures, software and information in
order to combat invasion or fraudulent use of networks or
computers through unwanted content which has the potential
to be morally, socially or economically harmful.

(1) http://www.europa.eu.int/information_society/programmes/iap/

index_en.htm

(2) Topics covered previously by the Committee

C 157/138

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

28.6.2005

3. General comments by the Committee

to cover all
capable of being used for unwanted or hostile external access.

forms of electronic communication which are

3.1
The Committee refers to its previous position on protec-
tion of children on the Internet and its first action plan. (1) It
welcomes the proposal for a new action plan to deal with
in online communication (see
illegal and harmful content
Section 1, Summary, at the beginning of this document), and it
supports the objectives and priorities of the Safer Internet Plus
Programme, as one of the strategies intended to make Internet
use safer. However, the Committee emphasises the enormity of
the problem and the need for international measures and legis-
lation to deal with it.

In the view of the Committee, the Internet and new
3.2
technologies for online communication (for example, mobile
telephones and palmtop computers with Internet and multi-
media functions, currently undergoing rapid growth) are of
fundamental importance for the development of the knowledge
economy, the e-economy and e-government. They are flexible
communication tools used for culture, work and free time.
Therefore, it is vital to ensure that communications networks
can function safely and smoothly, given that they are an essen-
tial public service which needs to remain open and accessible,
and which needs to inspire the confidence of all users in order
to fulfil its various functions in the best possible conditions.
Including information on safer Internet use in the various e-
Europe programmes, and training activities in particular, is one
of the most promising ways forward, as a cost-effective means
of reaching the largest possible number of people.

access,

Conducive to the freedom of expression and communi-
3.3
cation prevailing on the Internet are the relatively low costs of
Internet
including broadband connections, which
provide increasingly fast access to multimedia content. Only a
few countries with significant democratic deficits seek to
monitor the messages and contents available to their nationals,
In the
at
it
opinion of
to guarantee
the Committee,
the same time preserving and
increased security while at
promoting freedom of
communication and
expression.

the cost of permanent

impairment
is

to freedom.

information,

important

However,

the Internet, as a global medium of

free
3.4
expression and information, is used for illegal activities such as
paedophilia and the dissemination of racist or xenophobic
content to an even greater extent than other forms of commu-
nication. Some types of content may also be harmful for par-
ticular groups of users, especially minors, such as pornography
and gambling (which are actually prohibited in some countries)
or those related to various criminal activities (abuse of band-
width, or fraudulent use of data or servers). The Committee is
therefore in favour of broadening the scope of the action plan

(1) EESC opinions on A programme for child protection on the Internet,
rapporteur: Ms Davison, O.J. C48, 21/02/2002, on the Communica-
tion from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the
European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of
the
Regions - Network and Information Security: Proposal
for a European
Policy Approach, rapporteur: Mr Retureau, O.J. C48 of 21/02/2002
and the Green Paper on the protection of minors and human dignity in
audiovisual and information services, rapporteur: Ms Barrow, O.J. C
287, 22/09/1997.

3.5
Regulation of this new and rapidly growing area has
become complex due to the fact that the Internet is an interna-
tional, open network accessible to everyone through any server
or any personal computer, with unrestricted access from practi-
cally any country in the world. However, many countries still
have weak or insufficient legislation permitting the operation
of websites which are banned in the European Union. It is very
important for the European Union,
in cooperation with the
main North American and Asian countries where broadband
Internet use is widespread, to speak out and to campaign for
international measures to protect those who are most vulner-
able, to take more effective action against unsolicited messages
(spam), which threaten the development of electronic mail, and
against the proliferation of computer viruses, which undermine
the digital economy. Necessary though such action is within
the European Union, the measures need to be implemented as
part of a global approach.

Given the lack of international agreements, prohibition
3.6
of certain types of content by some countries may even be
contested by complaints lodged with the WTO concerning
TBTs (2); this is an issue which needs to be discussed during the
current round of negotiations.

The territoriality of law and the diversity of national
3.7
legislation make it difficult to deal with the problem. The
current state of technology also permits individuals to send
each other all kinds of
files directly (P2P, peer-to-peer),
including encoded files whose contents cannot be checked; any
computer or online network can be used to store or send
increasingly sophisticated content, and it is possible to connect
to any server without revealing one's identity or leaving a trail,
and to use encryption technologies which are very resistant or
even impossible to crack.

As a result of the fashion for personal websites and
3.8
the development of online shopping and financial
blogs,
services, the multitude of educational,
informative, scientific
and technical websites, and also online pornography and
gambling, there are hundreds of millions of websites all over
the world. However, to some extent these can be checked
during the compilation of key words by search engines.
Internet service providers can also monitor direct connections
and websites which automatically forward contents such as
spam; advertising and other unwanted messages which these
are used for can be generally harmful (clogging up bandwidth,
viruses) or can affect particular users such as children (moral or
psychological ill-effects).

(2) ‘Technical Barriers to Trade’. Agreements on technical barriers to
the exchange and provision of services. See e.g. USA vs. Antigua
and Barbuda - offshore gambling; appeal against the WTO panel
decision (http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/distabase_w-
to_members1_e.htm), Document 03-4429, page WT/DS285/3, 26/
08/2003. Case pending.

28.6.2005

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 157/139

3.9
The Internet is used by gangs, racketeers, virus authors,
those engaged in piracy and industrial espionage, and other
criminals. Stamping out this kind of crime is difficult, even
though many countries have specialised police departments to
identify, track and stop such activities, and it usually requires
international cooperation, which should be encouraged more
strongly.

activities

How can criminal

3.10
such as paedophile
websites be dealt with? Although prohibiting such activities is
unlikely to pose a legal problem, it is important to put in place
the resources for tracking down criminal networks. It is also
important to protect children from paedophiles searching for
dates in online chat rooms, which are especially popular with
young people. The question that needs to be answered here is
not whether it is legitimate to prohibit and prosecute such
activities, but what resources are needed to do so.

Internet service providers (ISPs) are unable to monitor
3.11
and check all
the websites hosted by them or messages
between users (which are private correspondence). However, if
they are called on to do so by an authorised judge, police
department, or authority responsible for protecting children,
ISPs are required to immediately respond to requests or rulings
concerning closure of such websites and identification of the
persons using them, which necessitates preserving publication
details of websites and information about visits to websites for
a certain period.

However, credit card companies, search engines and
3.12
Internet
for example, carry out
service providers
should,
sample audits to track down websites offering paedophile or
other criminal content, using clues such as key words and
geographical areas. They could then report these to the police.
The same techniques should be used to identify ‘customers’
ordering ‘customised’ child pornography and snuff movies (1)
by credit card.
legislation should require such
audits. Internet search engines should also make it harder for
surfers to find child pornography and other criminal content
through the use of key words and phrases.

If necessary,

informed of the precautions to take and the resources to use in
themselves from being sent harmful or
order
to protect
unwanted content, or
from being used to forward such
content. In the view of the Committee, one of the priorities of
the action plan in regard to information and training should be
to gain the support of users and to make them responsible for
themselves and their dependants. A problem is presented by
unregulated health sites for example. To protect themselves,
companies should also focus on staff training and making e-
commerce networks and websites secure. In addition, govern-
ment administration and private and state institutions should
apply similar security policies to ensure absolute confidentiality
of data, and personal data in particular. Awareness raising
should be accompanied by promotion of quality online
content, and also encouragement of offline activities as alterna-
tives to prolonged surfing or certain role-playing games which
can have long-term effects on immature individuals.

3.15
Facilities should be in place to make it easy for users to
report illegal content which they find on networks to specia-
lised emergency call centres, recognised organisations or specia-
lised police departments, in order to alert the authorities and
enable them to take suitable measures when necessary. Parents
should be alerted in countries where children are frequently
abused for pornographic purposes, whether online or through
other media, for example on the external borders of the Euro-
pean Union; such measures could be included in some RELEX
cooperation programmes.

3.16 While lending its support to the specific objectives of
the programme,
i.e. to enable users to report illegal content
(hotlines), to develop technologies for filtering out unwanted
content, to classify content, to combat spam, to encourage self-
regulation of the sector, and raise awareness of safe Internet
use, the Committee suggests in its specific comments some
additional objectives which are worth considering.

4. Specific comments by the Committee

3.13
For this to happen, there is a need for public authori-
ties to be provided with appropriate resources and trained staff,
for wide-ranging international cooperation, and for regulation
at national, European and international levels which strikes a
balance between, on the one hand, preserving the rights of
Internet users and, on the other, preventing individuals and
groups from using the Internet to send illegal content, and
enabling recipients to opt to block inappropriate or harmful
content.

In the past,

4.1
the Committee has already urged the
Commission to cut red tape in EU-funded programmes, so that
micro-projects and local NGOs have easier access to funding.
The Committee supports monitoring which focuses on the
tangible results achieved under the programme and the effec-
tiveness of the proposed solutions. Solutions should be dissemi-
nated in a less confidential manner.

In addition, to be effective, this programme should
3.14
directly involve all Internet users, who need to be trained and

(1) Films in which actual violence, torture and murders are recorded.

The Committee believes that

it is worth considering
4.2
legislative measures contributing to the protection of end users,
if possible within the framework of the programme, or other-
wise through a new initiative by the Commission.

C 157/140

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

28.6.2005

Authors of

4.3
Internet access software, server operating
systems and firewall programmes should bear full responsibility
for their products; it should be guaranteed to users that authors
of such software make use of state-of-the-art technology and
regularly update their products. Customer guarantees should be
backed up by self-regulation, or, in the absence of this, legisla-
tion at European level.

Internet access providers should offer (as many of them
4.4
already do) easy-to-use anti-virus and spam filtering facilities
for e-mail and attached files. This could confer a commercial
advantage on providers who take protection of their customers
seriously. Given that children are often more knowledgeable
Internet use than their parents, spam filters, virus
about
screens, firewalls and parental control systems should be pre-
installed, and sufficiently user-friendly not
to require any
specialised knowledge.

The programme should also promote research into
4.5
specialised software and other means of checking how attack-
resistant the code of various filtering and blocking software is,
as well as encouraging or possibly requiring producers to
promptly supply patches for all security flaws which have been
identified or reported, and to develop the effectiveness of fire-
wall hardware and software, and methods for filtering and iden-
tifying the actual origin of content.

4.6
The Committee would have liked to see the evaluation
of the effectiveness and results achieved by the previous Safer
Internet Programme, classed according to the type of problems
which the projects dealt with, disseminated more widely. All
links to funded projects should be kept active, and those
concerned should be made aware of them. The Commission
website should also include information on initiatives
in
Member States and third countries in order to promote the
transfer and exchange of knowledge and effective cooperation.

4.7
It is perfectly possible to take legal measures. Internet
service providers, credit card companies and search engines are
all capable of being regulated, and some have already intro-
duced self-regulation. Rigorous criminal sanctions should act as
an effective deterrent against websites promoting terrorism,
racism,
International action
should be undertaken on as wide a scale as possible to identify
and trace such websites so that whenever possible they can be
closed down;
failing this, negotiations on closure can be
initiated with host countries.

suicide or child pornography.

Brussels, 16 December 2004.

5. Conclusions

the Safer

supporting extension of

While
Internet Plus
Programme, and having initially called for its introduction, the
Committee believes that the extent to which especially children
are threatened with abuse, and the gravity of such threats,
urgently necessitate additional legislative measures and appro-
priate practical steps in the following areas:

— there should be a general obligation incumbent on all
operators to protect children and users in general, particu-
larly those who are most at risk;

— filter systems should be installed by default;

— safety warnings should be clearly displayed on all home

pages and portals providing access to chat rooms;

— there should be support for organisations setting up hot
lines for reporting websites and online activities which are
harmful to children;

— the use of credit cards for ordering child pornography and
other criminal content on the Internet and for money laun-
dering operations should be prevented;

— parents, educators and authorities in countries where abuse
of children for pornographic purposes has become a cause
for concern should be alerted through targeted measures;

— more action is needed to tackle the links between exploita-
tion of children for pornographic purposes and organised
crime;

— systems should be set up to identify and provide informa-
tion on harmful content, and to remove racist content;
online scams and sales of substances which pose a health
risk should be publicised in order to protect vulnerable or
ill-informed individuals;

— there should be international cooperation and joint regu-

lation to combat spam more effectively;

— there is a need for international cooperation (improving the
early warning system) and deterrent criminal sanctions for
creators of computer viruses and for illegal use of private
and public networks for criminal purposes (intrusion with a
view to using networks for industrial espionage, abuse of
bandwidth, and other forms of abuse).

The President

of the European Economic and Social Committee
Anne-Marie SIGMUND