Abbe Horswill from Marriott on Protecting Human Rights through Security Solutions with Cisco using IWF's URL list
The largest hotel chain in the world, Marriott International, joined the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) in January 2023 as our first official Member from the hotel sector.
Through their partnership with the IWF, and with nearly 8,700 properties in more than 139 countries, Marriott is now an industry leader in the fight to stop child sexual abuse material on the internet.
Marriott works closely with another long-term IWF Member, Cisco Systems, to use our expert services to block access on hotel guest networks to images and videos of children’s sexual abuse.
Marriott is proud to be the first hospitality company to join IWF and collaborate with Cisco to raise awareness and restrict access to exploitative materials on our hotel networks. As a leader in the hospitality industry and a company that cares deeply about people, Marriott has committed to fighting human trafficking and other pressing human rights issues. This initiative builds on our anti-trafficking efforts and survivor empowerment work, honours our core values and upholds Marriott’s commitment to human rights.
Following a successful pilot, Marriott rolled out the technology and URL blocking of child sexual abuse images at guest Wi-Fi level across its North American hotels, with a global roll-out expected in 2024.
Marriott’s proactive stance to ensure there’s ‘No Room for CSAM’ (Child Sexual Abuse Material) in its properties has helped IWF initiate conversation with its peers from across the hotel sector, and we are hopeful to announce similar memberships so that we can help protect even more online networks in the hospitality industry from being exploited and used for sharing images of child sexual abuse.