Centro per la cooperazione internazionale
CCI
The Centro per la Cooperazione Internazionale is a non-profit association engaged in the development and promotion of knowledge on issues of European affairs, international cooperation, peace, and human rights.
ID: 943382841714-79
Lobbying Activity
Response to European Media Freedom Act
23 Jan 2023
The Centro per la Cooperazione Internazionale (CCI) joined the wider European community in analysing and evaluating the European Commission's proposed European Media Freedom Act (EMFA). In its work, it focused on the sections of the regulation dedicated to the protection of journalistic sources, particularly the Article 4. We welcomed this proposed regulation as valuable tool to improve the work of journalists and media organisations in the EU area. Nevertheless, the regulation as currently drafted fails to fully promote the intended aims and, in some of its parts, even represents a step backwards in comparison to the international standards. The CCI recommends that the current draft of the Article 4 of the EMFA is amended as follows: Principle of ex-ante judicial authority: Art.4 must foresee a mandatory requirement for judicial ex-ante assessment of any use of spyware or surveillance practices (4.2.b and 4.2.c). There needs to be a decision ex-ante by a judge or another authority of proven independence from any external interference. Principle of subsidiarity: In case of the use of surveillance to prevent or prosecute serious crime, it must be ascertained that the recovered information is crucial, and that all other alternative legal means to obtain that information were tried first. Principle of legitimate aim, necessity, and proportionality: Any surveillance measure should be limited to what is demonstrably necessary to achieve the legitimate aim and considering the sensitivity of the information accessed and the severity of the human rights infringement. Article 4 must protect journalists and their broad network of professional and private relationships, moving beyond the formula journalists, colleagues, and their family members contained in the original proposal. Article 4 must protect all the people that belong to the network of acquaintances of a journalist, which includes colleagues, family members, friends, and other individuals who share their physical and/or digital spaces. Include indirect surveillance: Art. 4 should include an explicit prohibition of both direct and indirect surveillance (4.2.b and 4.2.c). By indirect surveillance, we mean forms of surveillance that do not target an individual journalist, rather the people that belong to her network of acquaintances". It also comprises opportunistic or unintended forms of surveillance, including mass surveillance, that can nevertheless compromise the security of the information flow which the journalist is at the centre of. Explicit prohibition of surveillance and editorial interference not only by Member States, but also on behalf of non-state and quasi-state actors (4.2), which constitutes key players in both the European internal media market and beyond the EU area. While the EMFA is a regulation aimed at Member States, it is recommended that in this regulation Member States commit to actively protect journalism from forms of both physical and digital surveillance perpetrated by non-state and quasi-state actors. Gender approach vis-à-vis media workers: EMFA should recognise the high level of threats women and LGBTQ+ journalists receive online. An equal working environment should be promoted at the EU level, to ensure all media workers are protected from threats in online contexts such as gender-based disinformation, doxing, privacyviolation, cyber-stalking, cyber-harassment, and smear campaigns. Positive measures to protect journalists: Article 4 should also envision encryption as a legitimate tool to support professional secrecy and legal professional privilege, in direct reference to the articles 7, 8, 11 of the Charter and according to the Council Resolution on Encryption - Security through encryption and security despite encryption of the 24th November 2020.
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