Published: Tue 8 Feb 2022
Call for lawmakers to act quickly as new data shows child sexual abuse reports are soaring in wake of pandemic.
Europe’s largest hotline, the Internet Watch Foundation, is using this year’s Safer Internet Day to urge the European Commission to bring forward long awaited legislation to address the growing threat to children online.
In 2021 the IWF actioned 182,281 URLs containing images or videos of “self-generated” material. This is a 374% increase on pre-pandemic levels. In 2019, the IWF took action to remove 38,424 URLs.
Child sexual abuse images generated in this way now account for nearly three quarters (72%) of all the content the IWF works to remove online.
Young girls are at particular risk. Ten years ago (in 2011), they accounted for 60% of the children seen in child sexual abuse images. That has now risen to 97%.
Experts are calling on the European Commission to speed up new legislation to protect children online as new data shows reports of imagery of child sexual abuse captured via a webcam has “exploded” following the coronavirus pandemic.
Read more at Politics.co.uk
Messaging app Telegram will deploy new tools to prevent the spread of images of child sexual abuse after teaming up with the Internet Watch Foundation.
After years of ignoring pleas to sign up to child protection schemes, the controversial messaging app Telegram has agreed to work with an internationally recognised body to stop the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
The images that Nelson made have been linked back to real children around the world. In some cases, he then went on to encourage his clients to rape and sexually assault the youngsters.