Digital Services Act: IMCO report is a missed opportunity in the fight against surveillance capitalism on the Internet
Next Monday (13 December), the European Parliament’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) will adopt its position on the EU’s planned Digital Services Act. MEP and civil rights activist Patrick Breyer, who has been following the negotiations as rapporteur of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), comments:
“From a civil liberties perspective, the outcome of the negotiations is largely disappointing. The European Parliament made groundbreaking demands last year, but it seems now that it may have been mostly bark and no bite. Anyone who had hoped for an end to the surveillance capitalist business model on the internet, an end to the monopoly position of a few internet corporations or the error-prone upload filter censorship machines will be disappointed. More transparency is simply not enough. Only few of the LIBE Committee‘s recommendations have been taken up.[1] This cannot be the last word. For the plenary vote in January, my committee will most likely present a whole series of amendments to protect privacy and freedom of expression.”
Breyer sees a new threat to digital privacy and security in a separate vote scheduled for Monday on making publications of pictures and text on adult entertainment portals dependent on providing the operator with the uploader‘s personal mobile phone number. “Because of the foreseeable hacking and leaks of these porn uploader databases, this identification requirement virtually invites stalking and threats against sex workers, LGBTQI persons, and politically exposed and vulnerable persons. Victims of unwanted intimate recordings are harmed by the displacement of such material to non-EU portals, which simply ignore notifications of illegal material and requests from law enforcement. Accepting the elimination of anonymous publishing as an acceptable deterrent against objectionable content threatens to set a precedent far beyond adult entertainment.”
In detail, Breyer assesses the result of negotiations with respect to civil liberties as follows:
Upload filters
Parliament has learned from the protests against article 13/17 of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market directive, and rules out new filtering obligations in the Digital Services Act. However, the promise to ban the “voluntary” use of error-prone filters by internet platforms is not kept. In practice, therefore, nothing will change.
Data security
The promised right to anonymous internet use to put an end to the constant data leaks and misuse of data on the net is not part of the IMCO proposal. Government authorities would be able to request pervasive records on a person‘s online activities without a court order. At least the right to secure encryption is to be guaranteed. And service operators could not be obliged to generally and indiscriminately retain personal user data.
Surveillance advertising
The systematic monitoring and creation of personality profiles of internet users for advertising purposes is not to be banned. However, for the first time, users could generally opt out in the browser (“do not track”) and then also to be spared from annoying consent banners – an important step forward!
Freedom of information
Authorities could require the removal of internet publications without a court order – even if the content is completely legal in the country of publication. This means that in future Orban can have content deleted throughout the EU, on the basis of his own laws. The promised ban on network-level blocking is not part of the report. Internet platforms will not need to ask users before removing their content. At least, according to the Parliament, automatic suspension of users who have allegedly repeatedly violated copyright or other laws will not be mandated.
Interoperability
Digital corporations will continue to be allowed to decide on their own what appears in the timelines of users and what does not. Users are not given a right to opt out of the commercial recommender algorithms or use external algorithms of their own choice.
