“Who Benefits?’ Inside the EU’s Fight over Scanning for Child Sex Content”, a BIRN investigation, is among 13 stories nominated for the Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize for Journalism 2024. The nomination was announced on October 18.
The investigation, by BIRN’S investigative editor Apostolis Fotiadis, journalist Giacomo Zandonini and an associate professor in media and international development at the University of East Anglia, Luděk Stavinoha, was published on Balkan Insight.
It was one of BIRN’s most widely republished investigations, and was cited across Europe, by, among others, Le Monde (France), El Diario (Spain), Solomon (Greece), Die Zeit (Germany), De Groene Amsterdammer (the Netherlands), Netzpolitik (Germany), IrpiMedia (Italy), and Domani (Italy), amongst others. It has also been shortlisted for the European Press Prize 2024.
This investigation uncovers a web of influence in the powerful coalition aligned behind the European Commission’s proposal to scan for child sexual abuse material online, a proposal that experts say puts rights at risk and could introduce new vulnerabilities by undermining encryption.
After BIRN published the investigation, the main political groups of the EU Parliament agreed on the draft law to prevent the dissemination of online child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
Europol’s in-house research and development centre, the Innovation Hub, has already started working towards an AI-powered tool to classify child sexual abuse images and videos.
The winner of the 2024 Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize will be announced on October 23 in the European Parliament in Strasbourg and will receive a prize of €20,000.
Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese journalist, blogger and anti-corruption activist who reported extensively on organised crime, money laundering, corruption, sale of citizenship and the Maltese government’s links to the Panama Papers. She was murdered in a car bomb explosion on 16 October 2017.
The annual prize rewards outstanding journalism that defends or promotes the core principles and values of the European Union – human rights, freedom, democracy, human dignity, equality, rule of law.