Published: Mon 17 Jul 2023
The IWF works to help victims of child sexual abuse worldwide by identifying and removing online images and videos of their abuse.
Between 2020 and 2022, the IWF found that the most extreme type of child sexual abuse imagery doubled and believe this is partly because of an increase in criminal sites selling videos and images that profit from the sexual exploitation of children.
As a socially-responsible Member of the IWF, GoFibre can use the organisation’s comprehensive URL list of webpages containing confirmed images and videos of child sexual abuse. Now, when a GoFibre customer or staff member attempts to access any of those recognised sites and pages, a pop-up will appear alerting them and access will be denied at a network level.
While access to the imagery is disrupted, the IWF works to have the content removed from the internet. The URL list is updated regularly, with IWF analysts adding new URLs and removing those that no longer contain the criminal content.
Neil Conaghan, Chief Executive at GoFibre, said: “As a builder and provider of broadband services, we have a duty to our customers and their families to keep them safe, and so addressing this issue is vital as it only becomes more prevalent and devastating.
“The IWF’s analysts do a fantastic job of addressing online safety head-on and we very much share their vision to put an end to this type of imagery online.”
IWF CEO, Susie Hargreaves OBE, said: “Survivors of child sexual abuse need to know that there are people fighting for them, and fighting to prevent the imagery of their horrific abuse from continually being shared and sold online. Removal of this criminal content is at the core of our mission at the IWF and the work that we do with tech companies helps us to fulfil that mission.
“We applaud GoFibre’s decision to partner with the IWF and use our rigorously checked and constantly updated data sets to protect children and others on the internet.”
GoFibre joins more than 185 tech companies using IWF’s services. Find out more about becoming a Member and the services the IWF can provide here.
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.
