Corporate Plan 2005-2007
Index
To work in partnership with internet service providers, telecommunication companies, mobile operators, software providers, the police, government and the public to minimise the availability of online illegal content, particularly child abuse images.
Combating Child Abuse Images Online
To minimise the availability of potentially illegal internet content specifically:
- images of child abuse hosted anywhere in the world
- criminally obscene content hosted in the UK
- criminally racist content hosted in the UK
To provide hotline resources to track and trace potentially illegal content within our remit; to act as a notice and takedown body to UK CSPs and to alert law enforcement agencies and foreign hotlines that they may be hosting potentially illegal child abuse images in their country.
To foster trust and confidence in the Internet among current and future fixed and mobile internet users by:
- Operating a hotline to enable the public to report instances of potentially illegal child abuse images hosted anywhere in the world and criminally obscene adult and racist content hosted in the UK, for example via websites, newsgroups, mobile services or other on-line services.
- Promoting wider education and awareness of its functions and role and those of other key players such as government departments, law enforcement and consumer bodies.
To assist service providers to combat the abuse of their systems for the dissemination of criminal content by:
- Operating a notice and take down service to alert hosting service providers of criminal content found on their servers.
- Recommending that ISPs should not carry certain newsgroups in accordance with policy guidelines adopted by the IWF Board.
- Acting as a relevant authority in accordance with the Memorandum of Understanding to Section 46 of the Sex Offences Act 2003.
To assist law enforcement in the fight against criminal content on the Internet by:
- Combating the dissemination on the Internet of potentially illegal content i.e. abusive images of children and criminally obscene and racist content.
- Passing details of reports relating to potential child abuse images hosted on servers outside the UK to the relevant national hotline or appropriate UK law enforcement agency.
- Working closely with the police, lending its expertise to help trace the individuals responsible for such criminal activity online.
This plan supersedes the 2003/5 corporate plan.
We are pleased to say that we achieved the majority of aims and objectives stated in the previous three year plan within two years.
Our last two Annual Reports fully explain the changes, growth and challenges that we faced during the lifetime of our last plan.
In this section we focus on some of the main issues but the finer details of our stated aims and ambitions to deliver this plan can be found in the relevant sections at the end of the document.
Since 2001, we have experienced a significant increase in reports to our hotline, with just over 11,000 reports in 2001 rising to almost 20,000 in 2003. This upward trend appears to have peaked because in 2004 we processed around 18,000 reports. However, whereas we took action on 3,500 reports in 2003 containing content that was considered potentially illegal if downloaded in the UK this figure has remained almost identical in 2004, which means that we have seen an increase of 10% in potentially illegal content deemed actionable relative to the reports received. These figures clearly imply that potentially illegal images are still prevalent but not as easy to stumble upon. By virtue of the evidence emerging from police arrests and subsequent court reports, the content is still in demand.
Regrettably we cannot predict that the problem of potentially illegal content is on the wane but we do believe that some of the reasons for a marked reduction in consumer reports is partly due to factors like:-
- anti-spam measures taken by ISPs and CSPs to reduce the quantity of spam delivered to inboxes;
- awareness amongst consumers to delete emails where the sender is unknown;
- software that prevents attachments with images from opening automatically;
- effective newsgroup policies leading to a reduction in newsgroup complaints;
- less repeat complaints received due to information available on the IWF website about spam and websites we have already been made aware of;
- our partnership with credit card companies and law enforcement to remove their logos and trading opportunities from websites selling child abuse images, making online purchases with credit cards more difficult;
- publicity about the successes of police in tracking down internet users who previously thought they were anonymous;
- growing number of international internet hotlines providing more outlets where people can report potentially illegal online content;
- availability of sophisticated software for consumers to block unwanted content
Approximately 50% of actionable child abuse content is available through some type of payment mechanism (PPV) and 50% is available through proprietary online products of varying descriptions with no payment stipulations.
This is a less well defined area but, based on our experience of working closely with UK law enforcement bodies, the prosecuting authorities and the Government, we rarely trace criminally obscene content to UK servers. Most of the complaints we deal with which would conceivably be an offence if hosted in the UK are hosted on foreign servers and therefore outside our remit.
We rarely trace potential incitement to racial hatred content to hosts in the UK. Again the authorities need to look to foreign servers as this is outside our remit.
In 2004 Europe was showing a substantial downturn in hosted content of a potentially illegal nature but Russia and the US appear to be the countries where more concerted action would be helpful.
All our funders support us with voluntary subscriptions. We are extremely grateful to each and every one of them because without their support we could not survive.
In 2001, we had just twelve members, but this has now grown to fifty five. Thanks to the diversity of funders and a corresponding increase in subscription income, we have managed to augment our staff and technological resources to match the demands.
With the increase in membership contributors, financial backing from the European Union, sponsors and associated supporters, our income has grown to around £800,000, double that of the 2002/03 financial year.
Our Board has approved an application for charitable status. Should we succeed then we will have additional funding opportunities open to us from trusts that share our aims or from individual donors and the benefit of tax breaks applicable to charities.
A root and branch review of all aspects of our governance has taken place over the last two years. The outcome has resulted in a reduced Board membership with a new constitution and a modified constitution for our Funding Council so that both bodies operate with clearer lines of accountability that are now seen as a model of self or co-regulatory good practice.
We now have thirteen members of staff. Unless we adopt specific plans and projects or there is a change to our remit which would call for unplanned investment, we believe we now have the appropriate resources and resilience to carry out our functions in an effective manner for the foreseeable future.
Our legal status was finally resolved in May 2004 when Section 46 of the Sex Offences Act 2003 was enacted. This section legally protects our ‘hotline’ staff and, with the addition of an Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Director of Public Prosecutions and President of the Association of Chief Police officers, we are now named alongside the Police as a ‘relevant authority’ to take reports of potentially illegal child abuse content.
Our new website is designed to provide all visitors with the relevant information they require and correspondingly reduce their need to engage with our staff directly, allowing us to focus our efforts on our core business.
The Child Abuse Images Service (also known as the CAI Service) has been a major extension to our services in 2004. This database is available to our funding members who have the ability to block or filter potentially illegal child abuse websites. This service is still in its infancy, but given the apparent reluctance of some countries to quickly ‘takedown’ potentially illegal content, this service helps protect UK consumers from inadvertent exposure to such content from foreign shores.
Given the plethora of different services provided by our fixed and mobile service providers, it is incumbent on us to appreciate and learn about how these different services work so we can provide the appropriate operational response if and when reports are received. To this end we have recruited a technical specialist to liaise with our members as they introduce new products and services.
We work with the National High Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU), the Paedophile Online Investigation Team (POLIT) under the command of the National Crime Squad (NCS) and through them with officers from the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) so that websites hosted outside the UK are reported to Interpol. This arrangement will have to change in the future as the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) will be created and the units mentioned above will either be absorbed into SOCA or disbanded. There is no clarity at this stage as to what the final outcome will be, but such are our close working ties with officers attached to these units as they currently function that, we are confident that a body will emerge to continue our exchange of information arrangements.
Our liaison arrangements with regard to obscenity matters is exclusively with the Clubs & Vice team of the Metropolitan Police and we will continue to work with them and the new ACPO lead on obscenity matters as the laws on obscenity are scrutinised.
We work with the Racial and Violent Crimes Task Force of the Metropolitan Police in respect of incitement to racial hatred reports but this arrangement needs to be reviewed in the light of strategic changes that are being introduced to improve the police responses to diversity issues, including Internet related matters.
We have always been an integral part of INHOPE and in 2004 an IWF representative was elected onto the Executive of INHOPE. Through our close connections with INHOPE and twenty other Hotlines, the IWF seeks to increase cooperation and intelligence to counter the ever increasing sophistication of international paedophilic images. One of our aims is to stimulate a debate on the dissemination of our CAI database to other hotlines so they can assess the information under their own specific laws and then possibly replicate our service to their service providers. In return we are hopeful that INHOPE members will share their data with us so where applicable we can add potentially illegal URLs that have not been notified to us by UK consumers to our CAI database.
There is no doubt that there will be new and uncharted challenges for the fixed and mobile internet industry in the future. It is predicted that by 2006, there will be over eight million homes with broadband connection, over one third of UK households, with more than 60% of UK households with internet access via their computers. This growth in access is a major boon for the information society. However, as we have already seen, with an increase in such communication technology there comes a potential increase in abuse of that technology.
Furthermore, Internet access will become readily accessible via portable communication and data devices as new technologies advance. This opens out the possibility that the fifty million+ users of todays mobile technology will convert to new devices to provide them with access to Internet content of a quality and speed that to date has only really been feasible through personal computers.
Illicit content is migrating from the traditional platforms of UseNet and the web to the greater anonymity and robustness of the peer to peer (P2P) technologies. Many of these are specifically designed and pro-actively engineered to challenge the control of ISPs and regulators. Any attempt to track and eliminate specific content will require considerable investment in new technologies and ongoing rapid development of counter measures.
Such is the robustness of the P2P technologies, that they are being further developed to provide decentralised meeting places and forums for the exchange of content and ideas between individuals.
Several new mechanism for trust and group forming have emerged. Closed groups with active recruitment might become the key methods of exchanging and developing all types of illegal content. Identifying material for removal will require closer co-operation between hosting companies and bodies seeking to identify potentially illegal content. We can expect to see new methods of assuring anonymity being adopted so cross organisational cooperation will be essential if this problem is to be addressed.
1. Traceability
Ø We believe the steps already being taken by criminals to mask, cloak, obscure and deploy anonymising software will make the task of tracing potentially illegal content more difficult.
2. Peer to Peer
Ø Although outside of our current remit we are aware of a growing trend in using these services to share child abuse content. A contingency needs to be established for dealing with this threat and moreover the possibility of misdirected potentially illegal content via mobile devices. P2P has the potential to cause public concern unless effective protocols are in place to assess the content and then investigate potential offenders.
3. Jurisdiction
Ø Although there is world-wide abhorrence of child abuse, laws differ from country to country. In some countries it is not illegal to possess images of child abuse. In many others the age of child is inconsistent with UK law and there are other vagaries. More international effort is needed to address these issues if the proliferation of these images is to be tackled.
4. Encryption will become the norm
Ø An explosion of organised identity/content theft and electronic crime in general is creating a market for powerful encryption mechanisms in all Internet services, both client and server (WWW, Messaging, Email, P2P, etc.). Currently led by business users (VPNs, SLL connections, shared keys, etc.) most applications and servers will employ encryption even for openly published information (e.g. web content). This will be integrated into applications to the point where users will adopt it by default, with little or no perceived effort or cost penalty.
5. New forms of social networking will reduce the number of truly open forums for content distribution.
Ø Social Networking is the latest trend in community web sites where to join a group a user needs to be invited by someone who already is a member. Most are for legitimate purposes but they also enable like minded individuals to create closed groups to swap child abuse images. Envisaged as a mechanism for safe, spam free surfing, the techniques can be employed for running any type of site where a controlled audience is desirable. Joining a group can be very subtle indeed and not even obvious to the new member. In future, casual surfers will find themselves becoming members of a group simply by expressing a preference, or searching for related material.
6. A new era is emerging for bulletin boards
Ø Common amongst developers and specialist groups, new types of bulletin board are emerging into the mainstream. They are easy to set up and maintain, but amongst amateurs they potentially offer a new form of anonymous content distribution. The most common types are Wiki’s and Blogs. Wiki’s are self maintaining forums, where visitors can post and comment on documents, pictures and other content. Blogs (Web Logs) offer an automated process for individuals to create online diaries of pictures, comment and links. Blogs are becoming primary resources for many types of Internet search.
7. Anonymous payment mechanisms or e-cash will become a reality
Ø This is longer term prospect, but highly disruptive. The mechanisms already exist, but local legislation and the lack of a credible backer are keeping this one from prime time. The implications on the provisioning of illicit material are dramatic, as finance would prove a powerful motivator towards the adoption of all the above.
8. Criminally obscene content
Ø Our remit restricts our work to UK hosted content but we believe that international discussion is necessary if the reports we receive are anything to go by. We need to provide assistance through our website and other material to help Internet consumers understand why it is that the definition of criminally obscene content is so different around the world and that the method of protecting themselves from such content is in their hands through filtering or blocking tools.
Ø Discussions have been taking place to consider whether ‘adult’ websites hosted in the UK displaying sexually explicit images could be deemed as potentially illegal if seen by minors. Should the decision be confirmed, then it may impact on us by increasing our notice and takedown service to UK CSPs.
9. Racial incitement – extension to current legislation to include ‘religious incitement’
Ø Our remit restricts our work to UK hosted content. The government is proposing to add a definition of religious incitement to the current legislation currently applied to racial incitement. It is very rare for racial incitement content to be hosted in the UK because of the UK’s zero tolerance to such content but that does not prevent UK citizens from being exposed to content that is hosted overseas where the laws on such matters are so different.
Ø Parliament is currently considering legislative changes, but once again we need to provide assistance through our website and other material to help Internet consumers understand why it is that the definition of racial and religious incitement definitions are so different around the world and that the method of protecting themselves from such content is in their hands through filtering or blocking tools.
Aim: To ensure the Hotline provides a comprehensive service to the Public, Service Providers and the Police.
The core of the IWF operations remains the Hotline, receiving reports via our website from the public on suspected illegal content they believe to be child abuse images and potentially obscene and race hate content hosted in the UK. Following this, our service extends to all UK ISPs by providing “Notice & Take-Down” for any content that we have deemed to potentially contravene UK laws. Working closely with the Police and the ISPs, evidence is gathered to allow the police to mount a prosecution.
Our successful newsgroup policies result in the non availability of more than half a million child abuse images from UK newsgroup servers a year. We provide this service to all newsgroup providers in the UK and we continue to monitor and maintain this service. In 2004, Giganews joined as a member of the IWF. Giganews is the world’s largest newsgroup provider and they have stated that they may consider extending the filtering of all their newsgroup feeds worldwide to include all our recommended exclusions. Such action will greatly reduce the availability of such images as Giganews is one of the major suppliers to other news-servers.
In 2004, the CAI service was offered to our members, this service supplies any IWF member, who has signed up to receive the service, with a list of all URLs that have been reported to the UK police as potentially breaching the Protection of Children Act. This list is dynamically updated daily, with more than 80 URLs being added every week. The IWF is constantly reviewing this service and considering ways of improving the quality of the data and considering ways in which we can integrate our vanilla service with the diverse systems of our members. Availability of this service to non members is currently being considered by the Board and Funding Council.
The Hotline now has a technical researcher. This specialist will research areas of the internet that have an impact on the activities of the IWF and its stakeholders. This will include; monitoring investigations and reports into the activities of the paedophile groups that are using technologies to hide their locations, identities etc; the use of masking technologies to hide web-site locations, falsified hosting information and user identities. From this research, this person will be able to provide a briefing service to our stakeholders on new techniques currently in use.
It is also our intention to actively engage with our members to assist in the consideration of new services that members are looking to provide that may have implications for our activities. We believe that by getting involved in the early stages of development, the IWF can offer advice and information that could avoid costly changes later on in order to comply with legislation or best practices.
In 2005, we will commission the development of a new Report Management System to aid the work of the Hotline. This new system will be fully integrated into the new web-site and will provide additional services for our stakeholders.
The IWF will liaise with member companies, other hotlines and other sources to up-date the Hotline knowledge of techniques in use by users to avoid detection etc.
We will continue to provide our member services, including the CAI service, our key word service and our newsgroup monitoring and update services.
We will also seek to devise and deliver new services for all our members and stakeholders.
We will work towards the attainment of British Standard 7799 certification to reassure our stakeholders of the integrity of the information we maintains within an Information Security Management System (ISMS). ISMS is described as a systematic approach to managing the security of sensitive information encompassing people, processes, IT systems and policy.
We will continue to explore and where applicable deploy new technologies to help us identify potentially illegal content in addition to the leads already provided to us by the public, police and industry.
Aim: Communicate the role, remit and activities of IWF.
As media interest in the areas of our role and remit increases, we envisage a similar increase on our demands to fulfil information to the UK and international media. Our communications department will continue to provide interviews, articles, briefings, newsletters and other day to day media activity.
Our new web-site is a key component of the IWF communication strategy. It has been designed with a portal like approach so we can broaden the availability of knowledge and information for our users. This resource significantly exceeds the old website with new information and assistance and this will continue to develop and grow. The site has a dedicated Media section which means that the IWF is able to provide specific communication to media professionals and researchers interested in public facing information.
Through the new web-site, users will be able to sign up for our new e-newsletter which will be sent out monthly, and will include news and information from around the globe and information on events and opportunities that the IWF is involved in. Additionally, the IWF will be producing a quarterly review, which will feature information from the monthly newsletter and significant trends and data gleaned from our Reports.
It is the intention of the IWF to develop an outreach programme for our members. Through this we are seeking to engage our members in IWF activity in all areas of our role and remit. With this programme we hope to encourage greater involvement and increased information flow in both directions.
In 2004, the IWF undertook a campaign to highlight the changes to the law from the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and in particular Section 46. This will be followed up in 2005 with additional campaigns with an aim to reinforce the core messages of the IWF and our stakeholders.
We will seek to maintain an active dialogue and ongoing relationship with the UK media and seek to encourage positive reporting of the work of the IWF and encourage active reporting of relevant cases and successes.
We will seek to improve consumer knowledge and perception of the organisation and raise the profile of its aims and aspirations.
We will put in place a structured Public Affairs strategy that addresses the needs of the organisation and its stakeholders, particularly in light of the forthcoming presidencies of both the European Union and the G8.
Aim: To ensure financial viability and ensure that our personnel have the skills and knowledge to deliver its objectives.
From an HR perspective, we will seek to identify and employ suitable personal development schemes that will assist and enhance the work of our staff.
We will undertake a benchmarking exercise to ensure our pay and conditions match the industry norms.
We will continue to review and update the counselling arrangements we already have in place to protect the well being of our staff who are exposed to dreadful images on a daily basis.
During 2005 a recruitment exercise will be undertaken by our Board and Funding Council to secure a new Chair as our current Chair will step down on 31st December 2005.
We operate as a public organisation with full transparency. As such, we will continue to provide both Board and Funding members with relevant financial information and also post all our financial results to our website.
The CAI service is currently available to any member of the Internet Watch Foundation. Further aspects of this service are currently being considered by a joint Board and Funding Council working party. We will deliver the recommendations arising from their report.
Occasionally, we are invited to use our expertise to provide a service to other organisations. When such a service can be delivered on a full cost recovery basis, with no diminution to our core business then we may consider such an approach seeking Board approval if the proposal is viable.
Assuming that our application for charitable status is accepted by the Charity Commission, we will work closely with the Commission and other recognised bodies to ensure we maintain and maximise the benefits from our new status.
In 2004, the Internet Watch Foundation agreed a one year sponsorship deal with Pinsent Masons Law firm for them to operate as our Standing Legal Counsel and provide legal services for all our corporate requirements. As the sponsorship deal expires, the IWF will seek to either extend the term of the arrangement or seek alternative sponsorship to provide legal services.
We will continue to seek suitable sponsors for the IWF.
We will continue to identify opportunities that will assist the organisation in utilising national and local government grants, charitable donations and corporate funds from organisations that share our aims and objectives. Additionally, we will seek to lever in funds from EU funded sources that are suitable for our work.
We will work closely with INHOPE and the EU in submitting a new bid for funds apportioned under the Safer Internet Action Plan 2 (SIAP 2).
Aim: To work closely with UK Government and through them their international counterparts to raise issues compatible with our role and remit. Ensure that all our activities are conducted in accordance with statutory requirements and best practice guidelines.
We will continue to work closely with various government ministries including the Home Office and the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI). Both the relevant Ministers are extremely supportive of our work and aims. Additionally, we will foster good relations the Department of Education and Skills (DfES), particularly through our involvement with various BECTA initiatives and we will look to cultivate better relationships with the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS).
We receive all party support for the work we undertake and the services we offer. However, in the run up to an election, we are committed to providing information on all our areas of activity to politicians and their agents. Post election we will provide briefings and liaison work to assist any new personnel in their familiarisation processes.
In 2005, the UK will assume presidency of both the European Union and the G8 states. We hope to work closely with the UK government to promote our role and remit within the international arena through these channels we will provide briefings on our co-operation and engagement on the specific areas of online paedophilia and obscenity.
We will work with the UK Government and other international Governments to assist them in setting up new hotlines along the lines of our remit.
We will continue to work with Government led strategies for multi-organisational support, for example the Home Office “Taskforce”.
Since 2003, the IWF has reported UK incidences of illegal content running at less than 1% of all our reports. The problem has shifted markedly overseas. Over the next few years we will work actively with the UK Government in providing Ministers and Officials with appropriate information so they can engage the various countries that appear to have problems. With increased ties and closer cooperation we believe we can help instigate best practices on the handling of such content.
On-line paedophilia is split into two categories: pay per view sites, where operators are seeking to make a profit from individuals downloading potentially illegal content and trading sites where individuals swap content to create or increase their collections. When we consider our statistics, roughly 50% of our active reports are pay per view sites. Of these, Russia and the US account for 66% of all these sites, with Spain, South Korea and China being the next biggest providers with approximately 26% of the reported sites. Pay per view sites are generally run by organised crime units. We will continue to cooperate with police agencies and credit card bodies to assist in the disruption of the money supply chain with the aim of greatly reducing paedophilic content available on-line.
We operate as a corporate entity, with all the legal responsibilities that this implies. We will comply with all the Data Protection Act principles; maintenance of health and safety best practices; minimisation of potential fire risks; building security and crime prevention methods; and keep abreast of Government policies and statutory regulations as they relate to small businesses.
We will maintain good relations with Charity Commission, compliance with EU funding contractual obligations and constantly review our IT security and encryption technologies.
Aim: To work closely with appropriate law enforcement bodies on issues within our remit.
Throughout 2004 there have been discussions regarding the enforcement of the UK obscenity laws on internet content with regard to the illegality of content that is legal for adults, yet maybe illegal if depicted on a page that minors can access.
Extreme adult content has become a major issue since the Coutts case in 2004. The definition of obscenity is itself difficult to define in everyday terms but the distribution of bestiality, rape and torture content are normally regarded as potentially illegal in the UK. Websites that provide this type of content are rarely hosted in the UK. We have a role to play in explaining the vagaries of the Obscene Publications Act and how consumers can prevent themselves from being exposed to such imagery.
In 2004, the Government announced its intention to bring forward legislation to cover “Incitement to Religious Hatred”. It is intended that it will amend the Public Order Act to include incitement to religious hatred. We will engage with the Home Office in an effort to gain a better understanding of their position on race hate and to clarify the relationships between the IWF, the HO and the police in referring complaints received by us. At the moment, reports to the IWF hotline on racial hatred are approximately 500 per year, but our involvement in this area is not widely known or understood. As most of the content is hosted outside of the UK, there is a limit to our involvement but if the referral mechanisms are created then the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) could consider bringing prosecutions against those individuals who are domiciled in the UK, yet post race hatred content on foreign servers. Further discussions need to take place in 2005 to put procedures in place and ensure that all the parties are working towards common goals.
We will continue to work with partners on the Combating Child Abuse Online (CCAI) group chaired by the ACPO lead on Paedophilia and with the various National Police units until they are absorbed into the new Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), when new relationships will have to be forged.
The government has announced a more defined e-crime strategy and we will actively work with the relevant organisations and authorities to assist in delivering this strategy as it applies to our remit.
Throughout 2004, we have welcomed visits from Police Hi-tech crime units from all over the UK or we have been to visit those units in situ. This liaison programme will continue over the years ahead and will almost certainly increase as the various forces enhance their resources to tackle e-crime issues. Through these visits we can share our knowledge on the specific data and trends of online paedophiles and other criminal content, coupled with knowledge of developments in technology and how it is being used for criminal acts. We have recruited a new technical specialist to offer help and advice to such units on the activities of criminals and their use of new technologies.
We will work closely with ACPO, the CPS and other relevant organisations to assist in the development of potential new laws and legal amendments within our remit.
Aim: To create a strong and diverse membership that supports our aspirations
The growth of membership over the last two years has been considerable. We embarked on such a growth for two specific reasons; (1) to ensure we have a wide coverage of views and input from all areas of the on-line industry and (2) to ensure that through such growth increases in membership costs could be kept to a minimum as more members would be contributing.
We will continue our Outreach programme to all our members to ensure they are fully engaged with our work and services.
We will introduce a formal membership agreement that encompasses the values and code of practice of the IWF. All new and existing members will receive a “membership pack” providing a wealth of information and contacts on the company, its team and its role. This will be continually updated via a new secure members area on our website.
We will continue to seek new members to enhance our operations and provide greater coverage for our role and remit. Additionally, we will seek to utilise our position within a network of companies to obtain further opportunities for membership expansion.
We do not envisage any large increase in operational costs in the foreseeable future. Any such increases will be kept to a modest cost of living allowance.
However, we do need to be cognisant of potential funding threats. Because of our voluntary subscription model, we are subject to the vagaries of market competition and therefore consolidation within the industry might result in a reduction in funds. Furthermore there is the possibility that EU funding will be scaled down from 2005 and the cessation of time limited projects could have equally troublesome results.
To counteract this though, a successful transition to charitable status will provide us with the opportunity to realise funds from new sources. Such income could come from charitable donations and grants from charitable foundations who share our aspirations. Additionally, if we become a charity the pressure on our funding members could be eased as all such contributions will have tax benefits.
Additionally, the CAI service offers a limited opportunity to acquire a new income stream. As the public is looking for more protection from the less savoury areas of the internet, filtering and blocking software are becoming must have accessories. The CAI service is in demand from companies able to filter content so that they can provide filtering against our list of illegal sites. We will consider the options to charge a “licence” fee for use of the CAI list for companies that seek to gain commercial advantage by advertising the inclusion of our data in their packages.
Page Created: Thu, February 10th, 2005
Page Modified: Thu, December 7th, 2006
