Internet Watch Foundation

Dawn raids in five UK police regions have this morning seen the arrest of 13 men and women all suspected of being connected with commercial websites offering images of child sex abuse.

 

Three of those arrested were individuals suspected of masterminding the provision of the sites while the remainder were all suspected users of the service.

 

The operation was the first nationwide attack to be led by the UK’s dedicated organisation focused on fighting child sex abuse – the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre since it was launched in April of this year.

 

Arrests were made in London, Wiltshire, Surrey, Kent and within the Greater Manchester area.

Jim Warnock, Head, CEOP Operational Response, said: “Getting to the heart of any large scale criminal organisation involves complex and painstaking investigation.  Add to that the international element of this particular swoop and the extra burden of tracing financial online transactions and this was a particularly intricate operation. 

Sarah Robertson, IWF Communications, said: “Only last week, the Internet Watch Foundation highlighted the problem of commercial child abuse websites hosted around the world but still accessible in the UK. Today’s arrests are particularly welcome in light of the scale of this international problem. IWF half year figures show no commercial child abuse sites are hosted in the UK.

 

“Congratulations to CEOP whose specialist partnership approach and technological expertise has effected real change by arresting those who proliferate the sexual abuse of children.”

 

Child abuse images represent real children being abused. If anyone is inadvertently exposed to material like this, they should file a report online at www.iwf.org.uk. Reporting is simple and can be done anonymously.

 

The IWF is the only authorised organisation in the UK operating an internet ‘hotline’ for the public and IT professionals to report their exposure to potentially illegal content online.

 

Our aim is to minimise the availability of potentially illegal internet content, specifically:

 

We work in partnership with police and UK Government departments such as the Home Office and the Department of Trade and Industry to influence initiatives and programmes developed to combat online abuse. This dialogue goes beyond the UK and Europe, to ensure greater awareness of global issues and responsibilities.

 

We are funded by the EU and the UK internet industry including internet service providers (ISPs), mobile operators and manufacturers, content service providers (CSPs) and telecommunications & software companies.

 

Through the hotline reporting system, we help ISPs to combat abuse of their services through a ‘notice and take-down’ service by alerting them to any potentially illegal content on their systems and simultaneously inviting the police to investigate the publisher.

 

We also provide a comprehensive list of websites containing child abuse content for organisations such as ISPs, mobile network operators, software companies and search engines to block access to potentially illegal child abuse images.

 

As a result, only 0.2% of potentially illegal content is apparently hosted in the UK, down from 18% in 1997.

  

For further information contact:

 

Sarah Robertson, t: 01223 237700, e: sarah@iwf.org.uk, w: www.iwf.org.uk

 

 

 

The CEOP Centre works in both online and offline environments and full information on all areas of work as well as online safety messages and access to online reporting can be found at www.ceop.gov.uk. 

 

The CEOP Centre is affiliated to the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and powers are derived from the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005.  It is based in Pimlico, London with developing outreach channels to all areas of both domestic and international policing as well as industry and specialist support and educational faculties.

 

For further information contact:

 

Clive Michel, CEOP Press Office, t: 020 7238 2391, m: 07899 064 333