Arriving at the #WePROTECT summit and IWF Reporting Portals

Susie Hargreaves OBE, IWF CEO

Arriving at the international #WePROTECT summit in Abu Dhabi, in the wake of the tragic events in Paris, I’ve been impressed to see just how many leading political figures and members of industry, from all corners of the globe, have gathered to discuss the plight of sexually abused children and what needs to be done to prevent their re-victimisation.

It’s IWF’s mission to eliminate Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) online and we run one of the world’s most successful reporting hotlines. When IWF launched, nearly 20 years ago, 18 per cent of known CSAM imagery was hosted in the UK. Today that figure is less than one per cent. This is due to a partnership between the IWF, the internet industry, law enforcement and UK government.

Sadly, not all citizens have a mechanism to report online CSAM. There are countries that don’t have a hotline to report abuse and as more countries develop networks to get people online, it can leave them vulnerable to CSAM if they have nowhere to report.

Reporting CSAM is vitally important, as is having a trained analyst to take it down from the internet. Countries who don’t have somewhere to report are unable to protect their citizens from this horrific material and run the risk of re-victimising already abused children.

To this end, we’re rolling-out a program of IWF Reporting Portals to countries with emerging internet infrastructures, to give them a means to report suspected CSAM. The Portal is already used by Mauritius and Uganda, with other countries set to sign up.

The Reporting Portals are incredibly cost effective for countries, as all the CSAM assessment and removal work is done by our expert analysts at the IWF’s headquarters in the UK.  But, most importantly, citizens have somewhere to report this vile material, so IWF can take one step closer to our vision of a world without CSAM online.

Ends

Notes to editors:

Contact: Lisa Stacey, IWF Communications Manager +44 (0) 1223 203030 or +44 (0) 7929 553679.

The #WePROTECT summit is a multi-stakeholder response to combating child abuse and exploitation internationally.

About the IWF

The IWF is the Hotline to report:

    child sexual abuse content hosted anywhere in the world;
    criminally obscene adult content hosted in the UK;
    non-photographic child sexual abuse images hosted in the UK.

For more information please visit www.iwf.org.uk.

The IWF is part of the UK Safer Internet Centre, working with Childnet International and the South West Grid for Learning to promote the safe and responsible use of technology.