Published: Fri 16 May 2014
Epoch Payment Solutions joins IWF membership this May to support their efforts to curtail the availability of commercial child abuse imagery.
In 2013, the IWF actioned 13,182 webpages containing child abuse images – 24% of these were found to be sold on a commercial basis.
Epoch is an Internet Payment Service Provider (IPSP) with 18 years of experience in online payment processing. They provide merchants with a custom billing service, accepting payments on their behalf and protecting their clients from fraudulent transactions.
Epoch is deeply committed to the fight against the sexual exploitation of children and has an extensive history of actively coordinating with government agencies and law enforcement in the United States, including the FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). Epoch has also been a Founding Sponsor of the United States based Adult Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) since 2002 and has a seat on their advisory board.
Susie Hargreaves, IWF CEO, said “I applaud Epoch’s decision to become an IWF Member. Last year we found that almost a quarter of all webpages containing child sexual abuse imagery were sold on a commercial basis. It is important that we work with payment processing companies to limit this trading and disrupt the availability of criminal online content.”
Neil Hawkey, Global Head of Corporate Governance and Compliance for Epoch, said: "We are pleased to join an already impressive list of sponsors of IWF and support their efforts in the UK."
Ends
Notes to editors:
Contact: Emma Hardy, IWF Director of External Relations +44 (0) 1223 203030, or +44 (0) 7929 553679
About the Internet Watch Foundation
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.
Local MP Ian Sollom learned about the herculean task faced by analysts at the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) who find, assess and remove child sexual abuse material on the internet.
