Number of child abuse web sites falls

THE UK'S self-regulatory watchdog, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has released an annual report for 2008 in which it claims the number of websites containing child sexual abuse content has dropped by almost 10 per cent, but warns the public not to slip into complacency.

The IWF - which objects to the term "child pornography" as sexual acts on a child constitute abuse rather than the consent implied by the term "pornography" - reckons 74 per cent of child sexual abuse domains traced are commercial operations which sickeningly make money from selling obscene pictures of children.

According to the organisation's report, 75 per cent of these commercial sites (approximately 850 unique domains by the IWF's count) are registered with just 10 domain name registries. This, says the organisation, highlights the importance of adding to already concerted international efforts which hope to pressure the offending domain name registries to de-list any offending sites.

“These web sites, although reducing in number, represent an extremely serious problem," said IWF Chief Executive, Peter Robbins, adding: “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 web sites operate still makes it a highly complex and global challenge.”

The IWF, which draws funding both from the Internet industry and the EU, runs a UK hotline for the public to call in and report any criminal Internet content. The organisation then proceeds to immediately send out a take-down notice to firms offering web hosting services in the UK. IWF claims to have dealt with over 200,000 hotline tipoffs since 1996 and - in partnership with UK police forces - issued 59 take-down notices for potentially illegal content to British ISPs in 2008 alone. That illegal content, says the IWF, is removed within hours by the UK Internet industry.

Disturbingly, IWF's report notes that 58 per cent of child sexual abuse domains traced include vile and graphic images involving penetration or torture, up from 47 per cent the year before. The organisation also says 69 per cent of the children featured on the domains traced appear to be under 10 years old, with 24 per cent aged just six and under and four per cent aged just two or under. IWF does say, however, that it is extremely rare for sites with child sexual abuse content to be traced back to hosts in the UK, finding just under one per cent.

Britain's Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting, Lord Stephen Carter said he continued to be, "impressed by the breadth of its [IWF's] industry support and by the range of UK industry-led tactics to combat child sexual abuse content online". He added that effective and widely supported self-regulation was, "not a simple formula", requiring IWF's, "commitment to a range of stakeholder demands, public interest concerns, international political pressures, and technological evolution.”

According to the report, the biggest challenge faced by child sex abuse campaigners was the "global nature" of online distribution, something which could only be tackled with better public/private partnerships with ISPs worldwide, national notice and take-down schemes, promotion of filtering services to prevent accidental access to child sex abuse websites, partnerships with domain name registries to delist domain names in violation of the law and cross border data sharing. µ