EU tech ban seen putting children worldwide at risk of online sex abuse

Sex offenders in European countries use social media platforms to contact children around the world with the aim of grooming them, said Czarnecki. — Dreamstime/TNS

Online child sexual abuse could become harder to detect due to privacy protections set to take effect in the European Union next month – putting millions of children at increased risk worldwide, critics of the proposals have warned.

Under the changes, big tech firms like Facebook and Microsoft would be banned from using automatic detection tools that are routinely employed to identify material containing images of child abuse, or to detect online grooming.