Facebook was forced to shut off some tools the company uses to detect potential child abuse cases in the European Union because of a new privacy directive that went into effect on Monday.
The ePrivacy directive prohibits companies from automatically scanning private messages between users, according to the BBC. Facebook scans messages in its Messenger app and on Instagram for “online conversations that have the hallmarks of abusers grooming victims,” in addition to scanning images that have yet to be logged by investigators.
“The European Commission and child safety experts have said that the directive does not provide a legal basis for these tools,” Facebook Public Policy Director Aura Salla wrote in a blog post. “The safety of our community is paramount, and we are advocating for changes that will allow us to resume our efforts to identify this type of material.”
Child protection advocates have warned that losing the ability to scan messages and images for such activity puts children at risk. The United States National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, which receives reports of online child abuse material from around the world, said it receives roughly 250,000 alerts a month from tools used by companies like Facebook.
“Neither the EU nor one of the world’s largest and most powerful tech companies could find a way of avoiding it. It is a very sad day for the children of Europe,” said John Carr, secretary of the United Kingdom’s Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety. “We are heading for a very strange world if privacy laws can be used to make it easier for pedophiles to contact children or for people to circulate or store pictures of children being raped.”
The EU has been aware of the effect of the policy on efforts to identify child abuse. In October, the Council of the EU said it was “ready to negotiate a temporary measure” that would have allowed companies such as Facebook to continue monitoring messages for inappropriate and illegal behavior.
“Protecting children and fighting against child sexual abuse in any form is an absolute priority for the EU,” Council President Peter Altmaier said at the time. “The valuable activities carried out on a voluntary basis online to detect and remove this criminal material must be able to continue without interruption.”
Those negotiations failed to yield any concrete exemptions.
Other firms, such as Microsoft, said they have not yet shut down child abuse detection tools on the grounds that “the most responsible approach is to keep the technology functioning,” the BBC reported. Microsoft said the EU’s new law creates “significant ambiguity” and that it will continue to “remain steadfast in honoring our safety commitments that European — and, indeed, users around the world — expect and rely upon.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to Facebook and the European Council’s data protection for further comment.
