Police want a new national 'Internet Safety Centre'
Police have announced today that they want a new national ‘Internet Safety Centre’ to assist with dealing with internet paedophiles.
According to a report on the BBC website, this call comes as new figures show arrests and convictions for downloading such images have quadrupled in two years.
The proposed unit would be staffed by police, charity workers and computer experts and would operate around the clock to investigate reports of child pornography & details of individuals suspected of downloading or creating such images.
The Inspector of Constabulary for England & Wales commented on how much time arrests and investigations of this nature were taking up for individual forces – sometimes to the detriment of other types of child protection.
Stuart Hyde from the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) said law enforcement agencies, children’s charities and internet service providers are united in calling for a national centre.
No further information has been given regarding potential funding of the centre, but whilst it isn’t expected for the Government to suddenly set aside complete funding, it was hoped that by “moving budgets about” within the Home Office some money could be found. John Carr of NCH said he hoped Ministers would resolve funding issues soon.
Peter Robbins, CEO, IWF said:
“The IWF supports the proposal for a national centre because a central body is needed to concentrate on online potential paedophile offenders and to act as a centre of excellence for agencies dealing with victims and their families.
The IWF would continue to deal with complaints of illegal content via its internet hotline and provide a notice and takedown service to content service providers and hosting companies in the usual way.
As 99% of the content complained about is hosted outside the UK then the arrangements for sharing information between hotlines and law enforcement agencies around the world would continue.”
Created: Fri, March 4th, 2005 | Last Modified: Mon, August 14th, 2006
