‘Achievements & Champions Online’
Over 100 people gathered at the House of Commons on Wednesday 2nd February, for a lunch reception hosted by the Internet Watch Foundation. The event was designed to acknowledge the many individuals and organisations that have contributed to a massive reduction in child abuse images online in the UK.
Representatives from the internet industry, Law Enforcement Agencies, the Government, Children’s Charities and the IWF, came together to celebrate the achievements of the partnerships which have led to the UK being a leader in combating potentially illegal images of children online and working together for a safer internet.
Home Office Minister Paul Goggins opened the event and praised the IWF and the many partnerships it has developed since it was founded nearly 10 years ago. He commented on how significant its work had been in reducing the amount of child pornography available via UK servers and in keeping relevant issues on the political agenda.The Minister chairs the Home Office Task Force for the Protection of Children on the Internet, who’s aim is to make the UK the best and safest place in the world for children to use the Internet and to help protect children the world over from abuse fuelled by criminal misuse of new technologies.
Peter Robbins, CEO, IWF:
“We feel it is very important to acknowledge the people and organisations that have been so crucial in getting to this stage of effectively dealing with potentially illegal content online in the UK. We now have 55 industry members who value this multi-agency partnership model. Without this approach these achievements just wouldn’t have been possible.
There is still considerable effort needed to sustain this momentum and we look forward to building upon these relationships in the future.”
IWF Founders; Peter Dawe OBE, ISPA and LINX, received special awards in recognition of their initiative in launching the IWF back in 1996 and maintaining their support to this day.Photo (left to right): Peter Dawe, OBE, Richard Allan, MP, Grahame Davies, LINX Chair, Jessica Hendrie-Liano, ISPA Chair
“This award is momentous as it recognises the work ISPA and our members have undertaken over the past ten years to combat the presence of illegal content on the Internet. The IWF is a leading light for the world in combating the availability of images of child abuse on the Internet.”
Nicholas Lansman, Managing Director, ISPA
Richard Allan, MP hosted the event and IWF member, Wanadoo, were sponsors.
Simultaneously, the 2004 IWF Annual Report was also launched at the event.
The good news is that potentially illegal content hosted in the UK remains at less than 1% and reports to the IWF internet ‘hotline’ have dropped for the first time in its history.
The bad news however, is that the content is still out there.
Complaints about websites containing potentially illegal content increased to 20% of all reports in 2004, compared to 17% in 2003.
For a hard copy of the Annual Report please email: media@iwf.org
For an electronic copy, please click here
Created: Fri, February 4th, 2005 | Last Modified: Mon, May 9th, 2005
