German cabinet votes for access blocking against child pornography

Published on: 28.04.09
Source: Press release of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology

The Federal Government of Germany has appoved a draft bill to fight child pornography on the Internet under the responsibility of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. Thereby the government is implementing the recently approved framework.

The new regulations consist of amendments to the German Teleservices Act (Telemediengesetz,TMG) and the Telecommunications Act (Telekommunikationsgesetz, TKG). Both confine themselves - like agreed in the framework - to aggravate access to child pornographic material.

Child pornographic material means pictures and movies of sexually abused and exploited children. In spite of all international efforts to trace offenders and to take down websites containing such material, child pornography is still available on the Internet. From 2006 to 2007 the number of cases in Germany increased about 111% from 2936 to 6206 cases. Therefore in the future the full potential of all constitutional resources shall be exhausted, criminals must be prosecuted and websites must be shut down.

Essential features of the planned law are:

All large private Internet service providers in Germany will be obliged to block access to child pornographic material by appropriate technical means, on the basis of a blacklist provided by the German Federal Criminal Police Office.
Displaying a STOP page shall clarify to users, who tried to access a website containing child pornographic material, why they cannot access this specific website.
Liability of Internet service providers is limited to the case that they have not properly implemented the blacklist of the German Federal Criminal Police Office.
Data recorded might be used for criminal prosecution.

It is intended to pass the bill in this legislative period, ending in September 2009. Because the German Federal Government is aware of the fact that they accede virgin soil with these regulations, they propose to evaluate the law within two years after entry into force.

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http://www.bmwi.de/BMWi/Navigation/Presse/pressemitteilungen,did=29856
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