Beyond the Encryption Debate: A Children’s Rights Perspective on Online Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Investigations

  • Panel
  • Café
  • Thursday 21.05 — 17:20 - 18:40

Organising Institution

Crime & Society Research Group (CRiS), VUB

Belgium

The Research Group Crime & Society (CRiS) is part of the Faculty of Law and Criminology of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. It undertakes critical and multidisciplinary research in Youth Criminology, Penology, Urban Criminology, and Policing and Surveillance. CRiS scholarship focuses on the experiences and perceptions of crime control actors and of those subjected to crime control.
  • Academic 2
  • Business 1
  • Policy 3
In the context of the EU legislative developments, debates on online child sexual abuse (CSA) investigations often focus on privacy, security and encryption issues. This panel will however refocus on children’s rights and victim support policies based on lived experience and trauma informed knowledge. Drawing on SALVUS (Horizon Europe project) research, we map the full investigatory pathway from detection, reporting to platforms and law enforcement, evidence collection and preservation, to redress and victim support. The latter stages are particularly often associated with practical difficulties. We will discuss how and what European instruments and national laws enable or constrain child- and human-rights compliant investigations in practice, and where accountability gaps may remain. Speakers from academia, children’s rights NGOs, victim support, and platform safety practitioner will discuss practical, rights-based safeguards that protect children and their rights.

Questions to be answered

  1. How can online CSA detection and reporting be designed around children’s rights and victims’ interests, not only law enforcement efficiency?
  2. What do legal debates miss about support needs, evidence handling, and secondary harms in the context of trauma-informed and victim-centred practice?
  3. What do ‘good technical safeguards’ for evidence gathering and preservation, due process, and victim support actually look like in practice?
  4. Who should verify and oversee the effectiveness and proportionality of online CSA investigative measures (DPAs, child protection authorities, courts, independent auditors, researchers)?

Moderator

Orla Drummond

Trilateral Research - Ireland

Dr Orla Drummond is a human rights lawyer and research manager for Trilateral. She is the Project Coordinator of the SALVUS Project and has recently conducted a comparative analysis of the legal and human rights issues and challenges that have emerged during global crises for the PREPARED project. Orla has conducted research on human rights, equality, and access to justice for the Northern Ireland Assembly, the NI Commission for Victims and Survivors, Queen’s University Belfast, and Ulster University. She specialised in access to justice issues for children for her PhD and was awarded the Modern Law Review Scholarship from the London School for Economics. In addition, she has led the strategic development of key intervention projects working in collaboration with governments, third sector, private organisations and civil society, to examine areas as diverse as transgenerational conflict legacy, victim’s rights, children’s rights, occupational segregation and disability support.

Speaker

Karen Garland

Marie Collins Foundation - International

Karen is Head of Policy at the Marie Collins Foundation. A lawyer by profession, she worked in private practice for several years, prior to raising a family. She holds a multidisciplinary Masters, with distinction, in international safeguarding. Karen has a special interest in child rights, intrafamilial child sexual abuse and disclosure, as well as the law around protecting children from harm and abuse. She is keenly interested in online grooming and offence pathways between online and offline grooming. Prior to her recent roles in the UK, she lived in North Africa with her family. There, she worked with a public health charity creating and developing child safeguarding training for use in North Africa. Thereafter, Karen was the global safeguarding lead for an international NGO where she led a multicultural global team in responding to child safeguarding reports and allegations internationally. She is a passionate advocate for children, their rights and their protection, striving to use her voice to make safer spaces for children, both online and offline.

Speaker

Tamara Polajnar

herEthical AI - International

Dr Tamara Polajnar is a machine learning and AI expert, and the CEO and co-founder of herEthical AI. She develops trauma-informed language technologies to support investigations into coercive crimes including domestic abuse and authorised push payment fraud. Her work focuses on evidencing and quantifying coercive behaviours and reducing victim-blaming.

Speaker

Aagje Ieven

Missing Children Europe - Belgium

Aagje Ieven is Secretary General of Missing Children Europe, the European Federation for Missing and Sexually Exploited children. She is a European policy expert specialising in children’s rights and the protection of vulnerable families, including with regard to online safety. At Missing Children Europe, she oversees the organisation’s strategic development and operational network of 116000 hotlines and NGOs and focuses on evidence-based advocacy for better policies preventing children from going missing or experiencing abuse. As part of this mission she established programmes on better data on missing children and running away, and developed the CESAGRAM and Combat Online Grooming projects on the link between technology‑facilitated grooming and children going missing. Aagje has a background in health and political philosophy and nearly twenty years of experience in research and policy analysis on human rights in Europe. She has worked for several EU‑level civil‑society organisations advocating for the rights and wellbeing of children and their families, and for child protection in digital environments.