Pablo Duchement, professor and computerized judicial expert specialized in cases involving minors and social networks, posted on Twitter an interesting requirement made by the CNMC (National Markets and Competition Commission) to internet service providersas a result of a judgment of a criminal court:
In my TL, we are going to debate a lot, A LOT, BUT A LOT, about this requirement that has reached all operators registered in the Operators Registry of the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) as “Internet service providers ”. pic.twitter.com/1sBeZhRLqS
— P. Duchement🍏 (@PDuchement) February 16, 2022
As a result of a judicial process against an individual whose identity has not been revealed, and who, according to what is dropped in the Twitter thread, could be related to online sexual harassment of minors, the judge -after convicting the accused- also ruled at the beginning of last December to order Internet providers to take the necessary measures to “cancel” —for two years— “the accounts on social networks with the presence of minors, such as Facebook and/or applications that you have“.
Thus, access providers are held responsible for taking appropriate measures (which does not detail or identify, so they could be different with each company) to prevent this individual from accessing social networks with minors.
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A historic measure, but of doubtful effectiveness
A user with knowledge of technology will realize that the order given by the judge is not feasible (Movistar, Vodafone and company cannot “cancel accounts on social networks”at most put obstacles to access to them) and that also has potential interpretation problems…
…Does an online forum or a Telegram group count as social networks? And the chat of an online video game? As one of the users who has responded to the thread says, “I’m not a computer expert but I see that any criminal who watches some Antena3 movies, for example, finds a way to bypass those measures.”
The author of the thread warns at this point:
“I know that every measure has a countermeasure and a way to bypass it (sometimes, even very easily), but let’s not fall into the mistake of thinking that everyone knows them. Do not mention them […] that in the end we give ideas to those who wish they never had them”.
“Let’s not forget that this is an extra, that Your Honor has applied the appropriate criminal measures.” In any case, for Duchement, this measure marks “a milestone (I will not clarify whether it is good or bad, lucky or wrong, sufficient or disappointing, technological or legal) of the fight against cyber insecurity”.