GIFCT – Security Architectures in the EU

Currently, hosting providers can decide whether to voluntarily comply with removal requests in the area of „Islamist terrorism“ from Europol. From 7 June, these will become removal orders, which can be sent directly to companies by national authorities via a new platform.

With the Internet Referral Unit (EU IRU), Europol operates since 2015 a platform for tracking postings that police authorities classify as „terrorist“ or „violent extremist“. It is part of Europol’s Counter-Terrorism Centre in The Hague. So far, the reports from the EU IRU are so-called referrals, i.e. requests for deletion, which are passed on to the corresponding hosting providers.

The companies decide for themselves whether to comply with the objectionable content, but in the past it was removed immediately in most cases. In addition to providers such as Google, Meta or Apple, Telegram also cooperates with Europol and has participated in joint „action days“ on the internet since 2019, for example. „Referral Unit at Europol: German police had thousands of internet contents removed last year“ weiterlesen

The Christchurch attack has promoted discussions on the mandatory removal of online content. At several levels, the German government is involved in global initiatives. However, the German exaggerated requests for deletion find little sympathy.

The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) is not very successful in removing terrorist Internet content. With 2,800 files or postings, not even half of all German reports were removed by Internet service providers after an examination. This was written by the Federal Ministry of the Interior in response to a parlamentarian question.

Thus the BKA is clearly below the quota of 85%, as it is reached by the EU police agency Europol for reports to the companies. Since 2015, Europol has been sending requests for deletion via its „Internet Referral Unit“ (EU IRU). In October last year, the BKA also set up a „national Internet Referral Unit“ and since then has sent more than 6,000 reports to Internet service providers via the Europol channel. „Uploadfilter for crime scene videos: EU governments ensure „crisis response protocol“ for US Internet companies“ weiterlesen