Trusted Flaggers Summit

Promote Legality, Human Rights, Democracy, the Rule of Law, Peace, Freedom of Expression and Information, the protection of Children and other Vulnerable Audiences online.

On July 30, 2015, Portugal made strides in the protection of Copyright and Related Rights against online piracy by pioneering a Memorandum of Understanding on self-regulation. This landmark agreement garnered global attention as a unique case of voluntary, legally practical understanding. It aimed to implement an administrative procedure for notifying and blocking access to illegally provided copyrighted content.

Over the past nine years, this system has undergone study, negotiation, and experimentation. Today, the Digital Services Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and of the Council, October 19, 2022) incorporates a similar procedure but on a much broader scale compared to the Portuguese memorandum of 2015.

This DSA underscores the importance of Member States certifying "Trusted Flaggers" (Article 22). These entities should possess specific expertise and competence for detecting, identifying, and notifying illegal content.

In Portugal, the responsibility for granting the status of "trusted flaggers" falls on ANACOM, the National Communications Authority. Candidates must demonstrate specialized knowledge and skills, but also independence from online platform providers, and a commitment to diligently, accurately, and objectively reporting illegal content.

The notification and action procedure laid down in Articles 16 to 18 of the DSA is much wider than the scope of the Portuguese Memorandum of 2015. However, the operational approach remains identical.

The purpose of a First Gathering of entities that are natural candidates to be recognized as Trusted Flaggers aims to establish a European Group of trusted flaggers with the purpose to foster synergies, efficiencies, and best practices in fulfilling the mission of upholding legality and safeguarding human rights , democracy, the rule of law, peace, freedom of expression and information, as well as protecting children and other vulnerable groups in the online environment. This mission shall be achieved through the utilization of the notification and action mechanisms established in Section 2, Articles 16 and onwards, of the DSA.