07.10.2024

In its capacity as Digital Services Coordinator of Romania, the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) granted the first trusted flagger certificate, to Save the Children.

Save the Children and its designated area of competence as a trusted flagger

Save the Children is a public utility association whose mission is to guarantee equal opportunities for children, having promoted children`s rights for 34 years, in accordance with the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. More than 3,800,000 children have been included in their educational, protection and medical-social assistance. One of their longstanding programs is the „Ora de Net” program, within which they developed the esc_AbUZ reporting line, the only civil point of contact for reporting the online child abuse materials hosted on servers in Romania.

Considering the data and the information provided to ANCOM by Save the Children, corroborated with those available within the public space and viewed by ANCOM, the Authority deems that the organization has demonstrated to a sufficient degree that it fulfils all the conditions for being granted the trusted flagger status, laid down in Article 22 paragraph (2) of the Digital Services Act. 

Thus, the trusted flagger Certificate granted to Save the Children ascertains the status of trusted flagger in the field of competence ”Facts concerning the minors”, with the following subcategories:

• ,,Failure to implement the age-specific restrictions on minors by persons who create pornographic websites (including pornographic content accessible to minors)”;
• ,,Child pornography or the production, possession, procurement, storage, display, promotion, distribution, as well as provision of child sexual abuse material” and
• ,,Gaining the trust or luring the minors with the goals of committing sexual abuse”.

Furthermore, the certificate confirms that Save the Children has specialized knowledge and specific skills regarding the detection, identification and notification of illegal content in Romanian and in English.

Procedure for awarding the status of trusted flagger

A trusted flagger is the entity that demonstrates specialized knowledge and specific skills for the purposes of detecting, identifying and notifying illegal content; it is independent from any online platform provider, and it carries out its activities for the purposes submitting notifications with diligence, accuracy and objectivity.

Decision no.336/2024 adopted by ANCOM establishes the procedure for granting the trusted flagger status, according to which the applicants submit an application by filling in a standard form and attaching all the documents and proofs to support that it meets the awarding conditions.

Examples of entities that can apply for trusted flagger status

• NGOs, e.g. consumer organisations, child protection organisations, human rights organisations, environmental organisations, animal rights organisations;
• members of well-known fact-checking networks, such as the International Fact Checking Network (IFCN);
• public entities such as the units monitoring the online content within the national law enforcement authorities or within the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol); 
• private or semi-public bodies e.g. organisations that are part of the INHOPE network of hotlines for reporting child abuse material and organisations that have committed to report illegal racist and xenophobic speeches in the online environment;
• networks or alliances of entities at national or European level.

 All about digital services

ANCOM supports the users as recipients of intermediary services, having developed a comprehensive InfoCentre section dedicated to digital services. Furthermore, for the industry, the ANCOM website provides detailed information on aspects of interest such as: attributions of the Digital Services Coordinator, obligations of intermediary services, rights of service recipients and provisions of the Digital Services Act.