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NetChoice Pushes Back on the Anti-Encryption EARN IT Act

Today, NetChoice pushed back on the Anti-Encryption EARN IT Act at the Senate Judiciary Hearing “The EARN IT Act: Holding the Tech Industry Accountable in the Fight Against Online Child Sexual Exploitation.

“By attacking encryption, the EARN IT Act undermines children’s online safety, while doing little to help law enforcement tackle child exploitation,” said Carl Szabo, NetChoice Vice President and General Counsel. “The tech industry sent over 17 million child exploitation tips to NCMEC in 2018. The problem is not that cases are not being reported, it’s that reported cases are not being prosecuted.”

“Fourth Amendment concerns in the EARN IT Act could endanger existing efforts by online platforms to help in the fight against child exploitation.”

“It would make it harder for law enforcement to track and tackle child exploitation while failing to solve the backlog at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), and as a result does nothing to improve prosecution rates for child exploitation.”