[news release] The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) today published its Annual Report 2008 revealing a fall of nearly 10% in the number of international websites with child sexual abuse content. The report warns against complacency, pointing to the serious nature of the images which are often carried on commercial websites.
The report also highlights the fact that 74% of child sexual abuse domains traced by IWF are commercial operations selling indecent images of children, and 75% of the these (some 850 unique domains) are registered with just 10 domain name registries. This underlines the importance of recent international efforts with domain name registries to get the site names delisted, and will remain a focus of IWF attention going forward.”These websites, although reducing in number, represent an extremely serious problem”, said IWF Chief Executive, Peter Robbins OBE, QPM. “The extensive intelligence networks we have with partner Hotlines and law enforcement colleagues around the world to support international action are making a real difference but the sophisticated way these websites operate still makes it a highly complex and global challenge.”
IWF is the UK self-regulatory body, funded by the internet industry and the EU, operating a national Hotline for public reports of criminal internet content (iwf.org.uk) and providing a notice and take-down service to companies offering web hosting services in the UK. Since 1996 it has dealt with more than 200,000 reports and has over 12 years’ experience of tracking and understanding the technologies and behaviour behind the sites. Its 2008 data reveals a continuing trend in the severity and commercialisation of the images:
- 58% of child sexual abuse domains traced contain graphic images involving penetration or torture (47% of domains in 2007)
- 69% of the children appear to be 10 years old or younger; 24% 6 or under, and 4% 2 or under (80% appeared to be 10 or under in 2007)
- 74% of child sexual abuse domains traced are commercial operations, selling images (80% commercial in 2007)
it is still rare to trace child sexual abuse content to hosts in the UK (under 1%).The UK’s partnership approach to eradicating child sexual abuse websites is extremely effective, with content being removed within hours by the UK internet industry.
Lord Stephen Carter CBE, Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting, welcomed the report, “I have followed the IWF’s work for many years and continue to be impressed by the breadth of its industry support and by the range of UK industry-led tactics to combat child sexual abuse content online which have impacted so positively around the world. Effective, widely supported self-regulation is not a simple formula. For the IWF it requires commitment to a range of stakeholder demands, public interest concerns, international political pressures, and technological evolution and I congratulate them on their achievements.”
The greatest challenge remains the global nature of the online distribution of child sexual abuse images. The IWF is convinced that only concerted international law enforcement action, in partnership with Hotlines, can tackle the remaining core of sites.
The IWF suggests five ways to tackle this global problem:
- Public/private partnership involving service providers working through a system of self-regulation
- National notice and take-down schemes to remove criminal online content quickly
- Promotion of filtering services to prevent accidental access to websites containing child sexual abuse content
- Partnership with domain name registries to delist domain names that sell child sexual abuse images
- Sharing data, intelligence and tactics internationally to combat the cross-border nature of these crimes
This IWF news release was sourced from:
http://iwf.org.uk/media/news.258.htmUK internet watchdog: Drop in child porn sites [AP]
The number of international websites showing sexual abuse of children has fallen by about 10 per cent, but the images on these sites are more violent, a British internet watchdog said.The Internet Watch Foundation said increased vigilance by U.K. police and private groups that operate a series of hot lines has made it harder for commercial groups to operate child pornography websites.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10569299
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30460852/
www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/internet-watchdog-drop-in-child-porn-sites-1675996.htmlChild porn websites fall but more work needed
Websites displaying child pornography fell by almost 10 percent in 2008, but most of those images were still being peddled by commercial sites, an Internet watchdog said on Wednesday.In its annual report, the UK-based Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) said 74 percent of child abuse web addresses tracked worldwide were of a commercial nature.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUKTRE53R82620090428
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSTRE53R84G20090428Child abuse images becoming more severe
Commercial websites hosting child abuse images are remaining difficult to trace and hosting more severe content, according to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF).In its second annual report the charity, which works with the police and internet service providers (ISPs) to remove child sex abuse images from the internet, said the overall number of websites hosting child abuse images had fallen by 10 per cent.
http://www.computeractive.co.uk/computeractive/news/2241395/child-abuse-images-becoming
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