Response to interpellation 2024/25:103 on the CSAM Regulation
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
M argues that sexual abuse of children in the digital environment is a serious problem where voluntary measures are insufficient. M emphasizes that the government has sought to increase legal certainty by limiting the tracking order to known abuse material 1 2. M argues that scanning should occur before encryption to protect digital resilience 3. M argues that the scope of application has been delimited to increase precision and predictability 2. C argues that the regulation threatens personal privacy and digital security. C believes that backdoors in encryption create serious security risks for the country and that the proposal is not proportionate 4.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! Ulrika Liljeberg has asked me if I have taken any initiatives for a renewed analysis of the security risks for Sweden as a country, and for our digital resilience, against the background of the Netherlands' new position after their security police warned against and opposed the introduction of the so-called CSAM Regulation.
Sexual abuse of children is a very serious societal problem. This applies in particular in the digital environment. We are talking about an almost overwhelming volume of abuse occurring digitally, and the reported occurrence of sharing abuse images of children has increased dramatically over time. Voluntary measures have proven to be insufficient to address this type of abuse of online services. It has devastating consequences for the children that the so-called CSAM Regulation aims to protect. This is also the reason why the government has sought to find ways to move the negotiations on the current regulation forward.
The regulation has been negotiated since May 2022, and for the government, it has been central to increase the legal certainty and precision of the proposal. Several delimitations have also been made in the version of the proposal that the council is currently working with, in line with the Swedish position that was anchored in the Riksdag in the autumn of 2023 - this includes, among other things, that already known abuse material and grooming have been excluded from the scope of the tracking orders.
Important changes also concern specifically encrypted communications and how technology shall be used in the event that a tracing order is issued. The tracing order is a last resort that shall only be used if other, less intrusive measures are insufficient. Among other things, it has been clarified that the regulation shall not prohibit, weaken, or bypass end-to-end encryption, nor shall it create obligations to decrypt or provide encrypted information. It also appears from the current proposal that the technology must not introduce cybersecurity risks that cannot be mitigated. The regulation is also clear that the tracing technology shall be designed to solely find abuse material.
It is essential to ensure the possibility of continuing to communicate securely. At the same time, it is not reasonable for encrypted communication channels to become a haven for committing gross sexual offenses against children. It is therefore being considered as a measure of last resort, if other measures have proven insufficient, a possibility to search for abuse material in the channels that are actually used by those who share abuse images.
It is important to remember that the regulation is intended to be technology-neutral in order to be able to account for future technological developments. Therefore, there are no detailed descriptions of which technology shall be used. It is, however, essential that the regulation sets clear frameworks for the tracking technology, how it may be used, and how potential security risks shall be minimized.
The government and a broad majority in the Riksdag are prepared to continue a negotiation at the EU level according to these lines. I have noted the point from the Dutch security service, and it is something that must be included in the continued process. It is about strengthening the effectiveness of law enforcement and simultaneously safeguarding society's digital resilience.
Ulrika Liljeberg (C)
Madam Speaker! I thank the Minister for Justice for the answer.
I want to begin by agreeing that sexual abuse against children is a serious societal problem and something that we collectively need to stop by preventing, detecting, investigating, and prosecuting with many different tools and methods.
But even though we are in complete agreement that we are talking about gross, despicable crimes, the measures we take - in this case the coercive measures that are proposed - must still be proportionate. Measures must not risk causing more harm than they protect against.
We from the Center Party have long highlighted the risks with the CSAM regulation, also called chat control: that personal privacy is threatened and that the right to private communication for, for example, crime victims is threatened. We have also highlighted that chat control makes it more difficult or perhaps even impossible for opposition politicians, whistleblowers, journalists, and media to perform their very important tasks for society.
It should be mentioned here that this is a regulation that shall apply to all of the EU's member states, which includes states with governments that are found on the list of press freedom's worst enemies together with, among others, Putin.
Chat control means that the companies providing protected encrypted communication services are forced to install a kind of backdoor that can be opened by the state with qualified keys. Of course, we see it as positive that there are clear rules for how the backdoor may be opened. Our objection is that we do not think the backdoor should be installed at all. It is a backdoor into everyone's mobiles and computers, and if there is a backdoor, it will be found.
We are living in a time when espionage, terror, serious organized crime and illicit influence often interact and have moved from streets and squares into the digital world. Therefore, this is not only about individuals and companies, as I have mentioned, but also about us as a country. It is about a country's digital security and a country's digital resilience.
That was why the Netherlands' security service advised its government in September to say no to chat control. They question the idea of monitoring all digital communication and have instead emphasized the importance for many of having access to end-to-end encrypted communication. They consider that chat control entails serious security risks for the country's digital resilience.
I would like to thank you for the answer, but I still wonder what exactly the government takes away from this in the continued process.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! Thank you to Ulrika Liljeberg for the opportunity to discuss these important issues today!
I think all the questions that Ulrika Liljeberg raises are relevant. It is also why the government's starting point in these negotiations has been to achieve a better balance between, on the one hand, the effectiveness of crime fighting and the safety of children and young people online, and on the other hand, privacy and legal certainty.
I want to repeat that the proposal we are now discussing is almost identical to the line that Sweden adopted last autumn and which we have maintained in the negotiations since then. It was a position that all parties except Vänsterpartiet stood behind. S wanted to go even further in a so-called interventionist direction.
How then do we take hold of the point that has been put forward? It addresses one of the core issues here: Is it possible to achieve what we want to achieve to combat these terrible crimes and at the same time maintain the legal certainty, privacy, and robustness in these systems?
That is also why a limitation has been made regarding the tracking order, which is the ultimate tool and the sharpest part of the proposal we are now discussing – it is much broader; this is the most far-reaching, which shall be used as a last resort – shall only be able to be used to search for image and video material, i.e., abuse material, which is already known to the police. That limitation is made precisely in that light.
I can state that after deliberations in the Committee on Justice in September, it is clear that there is a broad majority behind this position. This was repeated in the Committee on EU Affairs in October. I also want to emphasize that what we are talking about now are the Council's positions ahead of continued discussion and negotiation with the European Parliament, where these issues, I assume, will be at the center of the discussion.
Ulrika Liljeberg (C)
Madam Speaker! Yes, we have appreciated that the government has come both voluntarily and as we requested in the committee, for both information and deliberations. We have had deliberations about this both in June and in September this year, so it is done.
What is said in the response, for which I nevertheless wish to receive some clarification, is that the proposed regulation shall not prohibit, weaken, or bypass end-to-end encryption, nor shall it create obligations to decrypt or provide encrypted information. At the same time, it is said that it is not reasonable for encrypted communication channels to become a haven for those who wish to commit crimes. It cannot be interpreted in any other way than that it should then be possible to break the encryption. I cannot make this add up logically, so I would appreciate a clarification from the Minister of Justice in that area.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! I do not think this is so illogical. I want to start with another question, which is not related to this regulation, namely the use of secret coercive measures. It is clear that part of the use of coercive measures involves gaining access to encrypted channels. The difference compared to the proposal we are now talking about is, of course, that it concerns an individual case, that it has been subject to judicial review, and that it is not about any general scanning of all communication but specifically concerns an individual case. But it is still an expression of the line of thinking. It is clear that it concerns protected communication, but there can be situations where the law enforcement's interest in accessing that communication must take precedence. This is also something that we continuously talk about here in the Swedish Riksdag when it concerns law enforcement agencies' access to just effective coercive measures in order to be able to break through encryption in certain delimited cases. Just there, I therefore do not think there is any logical contradiction.
What makes this issue partially different compared to the more traditional discussion on compulsory measures, however, is that the proposal concerns a general scanning that affects all communication. It is clear that the technical sticking point here is whether it is possible to achieve this while simultaneously protecting or shielding communication once it is encrypted. The tracking order is intended to function such that the scanning of the information takes place before it enters the encrypted channel. It is only there that a hit is made, where the information, the known abuse material, will be sorted out, while all other information enters and is encrypted just as usual.
I gladly concede that this is a rather advanced technical discussion. But I also perceive that as this proposal, which we consider sufficiently balanced to continue a discussion with the European Parliament, is written, it is in any case clear that if it cannot be achieved with less than practically knocking out the prerequisites for encrypted information, it will not be permitted to be carried out. The prerequisite itself is therefore that it is possible to carry out this scanning at such an early stage that the content has not yet been encrypted, and that this in turn can be done in such a way that one does not jeopardize the robustness and security in the digital environments and channels.
This is the very prerequisite for the proposal, and it is, of course, also the major sticking point. I assume that it is also the one that will be the subject of the continued discussion with the European Parliament.
I want to conclude by saying that no one stands up and says: I think it is acceptable with the enormous volume of sexual abuse against children that occurs in the digital environment. But the question still arises: What are we then going to do about it, if it is a reality that it occurs there and that what used to be abuse in the physical environment has now moved into a completely different context? I believe that just the development of encrypted services in recent years has completely redrawn the playing field for our opportunities as a society to access this type of serious violent crime and protect our most vulnerable against this type of abuse.
Ulrika Liljeberg (C)
Madam Speaker! It sounds as if the Minister and the undersigned must arrange a technical seminar on this and see what is possible.
I still want to say that the Center Party has stood behind the historically large investments that the government has proposed and which we agree need to be done. We have stood behind the many increased penalties that have been implemented. The Center Party has been against visitation zones and anonymous witnesses, but those are not things aimed at these specific crimes. We therefore share the view that more needs to be done here.
However, we make the assessment that the balance between the effectiveness of crime fighting and the safeguarding of society's digital resilience means that this is not proportionate and reasonable. There is, admittedly, a voting majority, but C, together with half of the parties in the Riksdag, makes a different assessment and sees great security risks with this proposal - for individuals, organizations, companies, and authorities. Now we have also, by reason of countries in Europe making a different assessment, wanted to highlight a risk for us as a country, with our digital resilience.
But I thank you for the answer and look forward to continuing the debate both on the issue at hand and, of course, on how we proceed with combating these crimes. It does not suit us to do anything else.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! Once again, thank you, Ulrika Liljeberg, for the opportunity to discuss these issues today! I have extraordinary respect for the objections being put forward, for the simple reason that they go straight to the very difficult balancing of interests which, in itself, is not unique to this proposal but which has nevertheless proven to be particularly complicated for a number of different reasons.
It is about the fact that in one of the scales there is a terrible crime, with enormous negative, lifelong consequences for children and young people - a crime that until just a few years ago took place entirely in the physical environment but which has moved into the digital environment and then, perhaps just a couple of three years ago, has also moved into encrypted contexts. This has redrawn the entire playing field. We will not be able to get around that problem, and it presents us with completely new trade-offs.
I would, however, really like to emphasize that I think it is important that we have the discussion. All the problematizations that are raised are justified. They will also, I believe, continue to characterize the debate and the discussion moving forward.
That is also why it has been so important for the government to delimit the original proposal and increase precision, legal certainty, and predictability. A natural consequence of this has been that also, when it comes to the sharpest tool in the package we are talking about, the scope of application is palpably delimited to already known abuse material and other things, which admittedly can be quite serious but to a greater extent contain the risks we have spoken about, are excluded.
The discussion and the political process will therefore continue, both here in the chamber and in the more European context. I hope and believe that we will be able to discuss the issues with the same seriousness as we have done today.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.