Thanks to state institutions, private organisations, and activists, millions of materials depicting child sexual abuse are reported yearly, and the numbers are growing! These materials are often the only traces and signs that a crime has been committed, as victims typically remain silent. The collection of reports marks the initial step towards launching an investigation and safeguarding victims. Regrettably, the sheer volume of leads and cases overwhelms law enforcement agencies, necessitating swifter and more efficient report processing.

As perpetrators' methods constantly shift parallel to technology and societal habits, practitioners must adjust to this ever-changing environment. This requires improved strategies and state-of-the-art tools to help identify the offenders and victims and speed up processing thousands of cases.

Moreover, legislation and clear guidance are required for organisations to manage and assess the risk of hosting CSAM. We must strengthen the regulations on internet service providers and technology companies to ensure they are proactively identifying and reporting CSAM on their platforms and services. 

In 2022, NCMEC’s CyberTipline received more than 32 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation. (Source)

Reports made to the CyberTipline in 2022 include more than:

About one in five children in Europe are victims of some form of sexual violence.

This includes grooming, exhibitionism, sexual touching, sexual harassment, rape, exploitation in prostitution and pornography, online sexual extortion and coercion. (Source)

Only 1 in 8 children who are sexually abused are known to the police and children's services. (Source)

“With children spending more time online due to the various restrictions introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the potential increase in demand for CSAM and attempt to engage in child sexual exploitation has been a considerable threat. […] Referrals to illegal websites with CSAM have also increased. There have been also reports received that minors were targeted with pornography during hacked Zoom conversations. Attempts to log into blocked child pornography sites have also appeared to rise.” (Source)

“EU Member States have reported an increase in the number of blocked attempts to access websites featuring CSAM during their lockdowns. Such reports are in line with figures from the Internet Watch Foundation, which reported almost 9 million blocked attempts to access CSAM in April in the United Kingdom alone. In some countries, this is matched by an increase in the number of reported CSAM offences, such as online solicitation and sextortion.” (Source)

Use the power of tech-for-good to prevent the upload and proliferation of known child sexual abuse imagery across your networks and platforms with the Internet Watch Foundation Image Hash List. This list is a collection of digital fingerprints (hashes) created from IWF-assessed images of child sexual abuse. It is a revolutionary tool that allows ICT companies to stop the upload, storage and sharing of “potentially millions” of child sexual abuse images online. 

Benefits of using the IWF Hash List for good

• Tech companies can protect employees and customers from accidently stumbling across known child sexual abuse imagery on their platforms.

• They can make sure staff welfare is prioritised, by shielding teams from having to view this distressing imagery.

• Every one of the images and videos on our Hash List has been viewed and verified by expert human eyes. Companies can be sure the pictures are criminal.

• IWF hashes cannot be reverse-engineered back to the images. This means anyone handling this sensitive data is completely safe.

• Preventing criminal imagery of children from being uploaded onto networks in the first place helps stop the cycle of abuse. It’s the right thing to do.