European Operators Press for Urgent CSAM Blocks

CEOs of the biggest operator groups in Europe have warned that massive amounts of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) are still exchanged online each year. They have pressed authorities to give them the power to block it.

Margherita Della Valle from Vodafone Group, Christel Heydemann at Orange, Benedicte Schilbred Fasmer with Telenor Group, and Allison Kirkby at BT Group want authorities to provide their companies with the legal clarity to prevent the sharing of more than 100 million CSAM files each year. They have written an open letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, and European Council President Antonio Costa, warning the trading of CSAM material online is “at industrial scale”.

The CEOs argue differences in legal frameworks make it difficult for telecom and internet service providers to fully pull their weight in tackling the problem, making the removal of barriers to blocking access to domains and URLs linked with CSAM a matter of urgency. The CEOs believe that an organisation with the oversight to identify and tackle CSAM throughout the EU is necessary. They also want interim measures to the same end while such a group is being set up.

Equally, the executives believe any such authority must be strictly overseen, and its focus kept squarely on CSAM. They called for governments in the region not within the EU to join the efforts with their own legal frameworks. “Children need protection now, not in several years. The scale of abuse demands decisive action, so Europe must show global leadership.” Della Valle, Heydemann, Fasmer, and Kirkby pointed to Internet Watch Foundation statistics indicating 62% of confirmed CSAM web pages were hosted in the EU in 2024.

A cyber tipline operated by the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children receives tens of millions of reports involving children mostly aged between seven and ten years old. “Girls are disproportionately targeted”, the executives noted. They branded it simply unacceptable for CSAM to remain accessible due to delays in removing it at the source.