IntelliGrade FAQs

We’ve got a growing list of hashes of child sexual abuse material. Through using IntelliGrade – first-of-its-kind technology – we’ve enriched these images with metadata which allows us to produce datasets of hashes which are compatible with legislation in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Interpol Baseline. 

If you’re interested to know if we can produce hashes which are compatible with other legal jurisdictions, please get in touch.

We have always categorised child sexual abuse imagery according to the age of the victim (0-2, 3-6, 7-10, 11-13, 14-15 and 16-17). 

We now also add contextual metadata which relates to the activities taking place within the imagery. By doing this on a granular level, it enables us to extract datasets of child sexual abuse hashes which relate to different legal jurisdictions. 

Additionally, we also add information relating to ethnicity of victims, whether the imagery is ‘self-generated’, if the imagery is ‘self-evident’ and whether it is a grid image. 

By enriching with multiple datapoints at scale, we’re creating a global hash list to help companies and law enforcement fight back against those who persist in sharing this criminal imagery. 

We add thousands of hashes every week to our growing hash list. As well as proactively seeking child sexual abuse imagery online, we are also hashing and grading two million UK Category A and B child sexual abuse images and videos currently held in the UK Home Office’s Child Sexual Abuse Database (CAID).

We provide hash lists to our Members where appropriate, to enable extra layers of network protection and safeguarding to customers and communities. Please contact [email protected] to discuss your needs.

Technology companies can join IWF membership and get access to all our datasets, tools and services including IntelliGrade hashes delivered to you in a format which you can use (MD5, pDNA, SHA1, SHA256). 

If you are interested in finding out how you can use our data to train the crime-fighting technology of the future, please get in touch.  

We share our IntelliGrade hashes directly with any IWF Member who can make use of them in their platforms and services to keep the internet safer. 

We also upload them to the UK Home Office’s Child Abuse Image Database for law enforcement’s use. 

Additionally, our hashes are uploaded to the NGO Hash Sharing Platform, administered by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.   

Different territories around the world have different laws relating to the definition of child sexual abuse imagery. Therefore, how it is categorised differs also. 

When providing datasets to companies operating from and within different territories, it becomes important to know how that data (hashes of child sexual abuse images) relates to the legislative environment. It might also dictate how, and if, that data is used. In this case, we’re talking about data which can prevent the upload, storage and distribution of child sexual abuse images and videos.

We’re creating one large dataset of child sexual abuse hashes, which can be easily compared and understood within different legal definitions. This means that data can be deployed faster and more efficiently, and it breaks down barriers which might prevent it from being used, allowing improved uses for law enforcement.