EU Commissioner Julian King visits NZ to bolster security relationship

European Union Security Commissioner Julian King visited New Zealand this week to discuss digital security matters with Ministers, including Jacinda Ardern. Photo / Supplied

The European Union is putting together the building blocks to stop the spread of online terrorist content in a move seen to strengthen Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's Christchurch Call.

European Commissioner for Security Julian King has been in New Zealand this week to strengthen the security bond between the EU and New Zealand.

He had meetings with several ministers, including Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and paid his respects to the city of Christchurch following the March 15 terrorist attack.

In particular he reaffirmed the EU's support for the Christchurch Call, the voluntary commitment between tech companies and countries to fight online violent extremism and terrorist content.

Ardern pushed for global support for the Call following the March 15 attack, and co-chaired a summit in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron, where 17 countries, the European Commission, and eight major tech companies signed up.

The EU was putting together a crisis response for tech companies and public authorities to work together to tackle online terrorist content, King said.

"It's to have the network of contacts established and tested so that if there is something like [March 15] ... there is a way of everybody being in touch so they can bear down on that as quickly as possible."

He said if terrorist content is posted online, the time taken to take it down has an exponential effect on how widely it spreads.

"Every hour counts."

There were 1.5 million attempted uploads of the gunman's video on March 15 within 24 hours of his livestream. It's spread was so vast that even Ardern inadvertently saw it.

King said the EU was also considering a regulatory framework that would give tech companies an hour to remove terrorist content following a legal order.

"We want to put a floor in legislation that puts obligations on member states in Europe to put their money where their mouth is."

A clear legal framework would also give tech companies a legal leg to stand on when they took down content, he said.

New Zealand law does not have anything that specifically demands the removal of online terrorist content within a certain timeframe, though Ardern has said that that needed to change.

As Ardern has previously hoped, this weekend's G20 in Japan includes a special session on curbing the spread of violent extremism on the internet.

Japan is a signatory of the Christchurch Call, as is Australia.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who recently passed a new law with harsh penalties if tech companies fail to take down terrorist content in a timely manner, will use the session to push for adopting a set of principles for social media giants.

That work will all feed in to the September follow-up to progress on the Christchurch Call in New York, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting.

King said the challenge of tackling violent extremism online was vast, given the amount of online terrorist content despite Isis' loss of territory in Iraq and Syria.

He noted one study in the UK that said Isis material had spread to more than 400 different platforms.

"Indeed at the end of last year, the amount of stuff they're producing was back up almost to the levels at the height of the so-called caliphate. And there's an echo and a reflection on the far right violent extremism side as well.

"Even when there are measures taken to take stuff down, far too much of it reappears."

He said the EU was also working following the Call's obligations by working in the preventative space, trying to tackle radicalisation and "how people are sucked in to violence".

"These security issues are about values. The people who are trying to cause us disruption or harm by targeting the way we've chosen to organise our societies, the way we live our lives."