ITWire

Declaration 29 has been floating around since April, and not surprisingly stirring up controversy. This prompted one of its authors, Tiziano Motti to issue, on 15 June, an "important clarification"  to all members of the European Parliament.

In it Motti claimed that WD 29 was "achieving high consensus" but that one paragraph of the text related to 'search engines' needed clarification.

Motti explained: "Furthermore, this initiative calls on the Council and the Commission to extend Directive 2006/24 CE, known as the 'Data Detention Directive', to the Internet users who upload contents, images and videos portraying abuses on children in Internet platforms (such as user generated contents websites).

"There is no intention to extend this Directive to the same search engines for Internet users looking for any other kind of topic. For the sake of avoiding technicalities, I have simply indicated in the text of the Declaration the wording 'search engines', but it is in no way aiming or identifying the willingness of including 'any research made through the search engines'.

"On the contrary: the declaration has the only objective to persecute (sic) children related pornography and sexual harassment online. Again, not any research made through search engines."

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