Ó An Roinn Fiontar, Trádála agus Fostaíochta
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Robert Troy, Minister for Trade Promotion, Digital and Company Regulation, today welcomed another milestone on the path to adopting new EU online safety rules.
Marking the development, the Minister said:
"Earlier this morning, at the meeting of EU Ambassadors, Ireland gave its support to the Council’s approval of the Digital Services Act (the DSA). Today’s agreement paves the way for the DSA to become EU law in the next few months.
"I am delighted that we are now in the final stages of bringing the DSA into legal force.
"We have seen most particularly over the last few years how social media and other internet services can be used for both good and ill. If we are to build on that good, and make those services safer, we must increase efforts to combat and mitigate against the illegal and harmful content that is disseminated online. I believe that these new rules will do just that.
"I expect that the DSA’s provisions will begin to apply to internet service providers operating in Ireland and across the EU from the middle of next year. The government will use the time between now and then to equip our implementation and enforcement authorities so that they are ready to play their part as soon as they are called upon."
The Proposal for a new EU Regulation, known as “the Digital Services Act” (the DSA) is designed to ensure the best conditions for the provision of innovative digital services in the internal market, to contribute to online safety and the protection of fundamental rights, and to set a robust and durable governance structure for the effective supervision of providers of intermediary services. It’s objective is to ensure that what is illegal offline is illegal online.
Once it becomes EU law, it will provide for a notice and takedown system that observes the country-of-origin principle while allowing countries of destination to ensure that content viewed in their own State complies with their own laws. It will also place additional obligations on service providers that are designated as very large online platforms and search engines (those with more that 45 million users throughout the Union). These include provisions on risk assessment, mitigation and audit, greater transparency with regard to their use of data and a requirement to adjust their activities accordingly.
The Council and the European Parliament reached political agreement on the DSA text on 23 April 2022.
In Brussels today, EU Ambassadors in Coreper gave Council’s approval to the text of that agreement. The Parliament is expected to also give its approval soon.
Final adoption of the Regulation is likely to be in Q4 of this year, with provisions applying, in the first place, very large online platforms and very large online marketplaces in 2023 and to all of the other service providers in scope from early 2024.