IWF welcomes Jurassic Fibre into membership bringing a safer internet experience to communities in the south west

Award-winning Network Operator and Internet Service Provider Jurassic Fibre Limited (JFL) have joined the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) as Members. Their membership enables them to further enhance the security of their services, demonstrating how serious Jurassic Fibre are in protecting their customers, especially children, to keep them safe online. 

JFL in the south west of the UK is a new alternative fibre-optic network. As similar networks are rolled out across the UK, implementing IWF tools and services to block access to child sexual abuse material is essential.   

Their mission is to give local communities and businesses in the south west the ultrafast fibre broadband that is already available to thousands across the UK. Their objective is to make gigabit enabled broadband available to 360,000 homes and businesses in this region. JFL joins the growing network of organisations fighting against online child sexual abuse material.

Michael Maltby, Chief Executive and Founder of JFL said: “Social responsibility underpins all of our values here at Jurassic Fibre, and one of our key priorities as an internet service provider is protecting and safeguarding our customers and employees online. 

“We are very pleased to partner with the Internet Watch Foundation, which is taking the essential action required to tackle online criminal content and ensure that the internet is a safe place for all.”

Susie Hargreaves OBE, Chief Executive of the IWF, said: “IWF services and tools provided to the tech sector are ever more essential as we continue to adapt to the technological advances in telecommunications.

“We’re seeing how more alternative fibre-optic networks are putting online safety at their heart and using blocking lists to protect their customers and the communities they serve. It is very encouraging that Jurassic Fibre is taking the lead in the south west in recognising the part they play in keeping the internet safer and working with the IWF to prevent access to criminal child sexual abuse material online.   

“Today we welcome Jurassic Fibre to our membership base. Working together will help make a real difference to victims’ lives.”

Jurassic Fibre already applies IWF’s dynamic URL blocking list to its filtering of webpages where images and videos of confirmed child sexual abuse has been identified, so these pages cannot be accessed during the process of reporting and taking them down. Jurassic Fibre joins the IWF at a time when the IWF hotline and specialised analyst team, is finding more child sexual abuse material than ever before, which forms the base of our industry-leading URL list for the internet industry to block and remove. 

The IWF data also reveals a startling increase in ‘self-generated’ material where children have been tricked into sexually abusing themselves on camera for predators. This kind of abuse has more than doubled in the first few months of the year.

Find out more about becoming a Member and the services the IWF can provide here https://www.iwf.org.uk/our-services

Images and videos of online child sexual abuse can be reported anonymously at https://report.iwf.org.uk/en

The public is given this advice when making a report:

• Do report images and videos of child sexual abuse to the IWF to be removed. Reports to the IWF are anonymous.
• Do provide the exact URL where child sexual abuse images are located.
• Don’t report other harmful content – you can find details of other agencies to report to on the IWF’s website.
• Do report to the police if you are concerned about a child’s welfare,
• Do report only once for each web address – or URL. Repeat reporting of the same URL isn’t needed and wastes analysts’ time.
• Do report non-photographic visual depictions of the sexual abuse of children, such as computer-generated images. Anything of this nature, which is also hosted in the UK, the IWF can get removed.