Council Decision of 29 May 2000 to combat child pornography on the Internet

Article 3

Member States shall engage in constructive dialogue with industry and examine appropriate measures, of a voluntary or a legally binding nature, to eliminate child pornography on the Internet. In particular, Member States shall exchange experiences on the effectiveness of any measures they have taken to eliminate child pornography on the Internet. In this context, they shall examine the following measures, which would place Internet providers under a duty:

(a) to advise the competent entities mentioned in Article 1 (1) or the units mentioned in Article 1(2) of child pornography material of which they have been informed or of which they are aware and which is distributed through them;

(b) to withdraw from circulation child pornography material of which they have been informed or of which they are aware and which is distributed through them unless otherwise specified by the competent authorities;

(c) in accordance with the Council resolution of 17 January 1995 on the lawful interception of telecommunications(14) to retain traffic-related data, where applicable and technically feasible - in particular for criminal prosecution purposes in cases of suspected sexual abuse of children, production, processing and distribution of child pornography - for such time as may be specified under the applicable national law, to allow the data to be made available for inspection by the criminal prosecution authorities in accordance with the applicable rules of procedure;

(d) to set up their own control systems for combating the production, processing, possession and distribution of child pornography material.

14

OJ C 329, 4.11.1996, p. 1.