Internet Watch Foundation Marks 10 Year Anniversary in Manchester
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is today marking its tenth anniversary with a conference in Manchester, hosted by Andrew Miller, Labour MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston and Chairman of the Parliamentary IT Committee (PITCOM). The event aims to raise awareness to teachers, police, local authorities, new media representatives and IT professionals from the North West on the work the organisation does to combat illegal content online.
Since its inception in 1996, the organisation has processed an average of 1,000 reports a month with more than 31,000 websites found to contain potentially illegal child abuse content. The outstanding success of the UK approach has seen the number of reported child abuse websites hosted in the UK rapidly decrease from 18% in its first year to 0.2% today.
A panel discussion will be hosted by Granada Reports’ Lucy Meacock and experts will include Peter Robbins QPM, Chief Executive, Internet Watch Foundation; Chris Atkinson, NSPCC Policy Adviser, seconded to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre; Jo Bryce, Director of University of Central Lancashire’s Cyberspace Research Unit; and Nicholas Howarth, Head of Greater Manchester Police Abusive Images Investigation Unit.
The speed of technological developments and increasingly sophisticated tracing methods have led to the IWF combating online child abuse content in areas such as online photo sharing services, message boards and proprietary groups as well as newsgroups and websites.
The statistics underline the need for unified international efforts, transcending borders and legal jurisdictions as well as the continuing need to raise the public’s awareness of the ‘Hotline’s’ work and the online reporting mechanism.
Andrew Miller MP said: “I am delighted to welcome the Internet Watch Foundation to Manchester. There are few more serious issues today than child abuse images online and I pay tribute to the IWF’s achievements over the past decade and wish them every success raising awareness of their work here in the North West and around the UK.
“This campaign, which involves advertising in our region as well as the conference itself, is a testament to the professionalism, growth and importance of the organisation and its message.”
Peter Robbins, IWF Chief Executive, said: “Founded by the internet industry in 1996, the IWF has gone on to secure a membership of over 70 companies and organisations and has almost eradicated online child abuse images hosted in the UK.
“Our achievements are a result of an outstanding partnership approach, securing support from the internet and mobile industry, public, Government, the police and many others, however, there is still important work to be done in raising the public’s awareness of our work. We are very pleased to be in Manchester sharing our knowledge and experience of combating child abuse images online with so many professionals and organisations.”
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Key IWF statistics and trends over the last 10 years
615 reports processed in our first year, 27,750 reports processed in our tenth year
18% of online child abuse images reported in our first year were hosted in UK whereas just 0.2% of online child abuse images reported in our tenth year were hosted in the UK
79% of the child victims featured in the images are female
Of all reports processed over the period, 92% relate to web-based content and 7% to newsgroups
There is a 50/50 split between those who file reports anonymously and those who give their details
Of all reports processed:
A third of all reported child abuse websites are confirmed by IWF to be potentially illegal
Of all reported content confirmed to contain child abuse content over the past decade:
There has been a significant increase over the last twelve months in the severity of the abuse depicted on commercial child abuse websites.
Of commercial child abuse websites traced during the last 6 months and reported to Hotlines and law enforcement agencies around the world, 62% were removed within a month, 38% were still active after a month and 2% were still live after 6 months. |
The conference event will be replicated in Newcastle and Bristol and will coincide with advertising in each region. The new advertising can be seen on the IWF website: www.iwf.org.uk.
IWF would like to express its gratitude to Millennium Copthorne Hotels for their generous support in providing the venue free of charge for this conference event.
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Media contacts
iris PR
Bill McIntyre, iris PR, 0207 654 7987, 07769 974891, bill.mcintyre@iris-pr.com
IWF
Sarah Robertson, IWF, 01223 237700, 07929 553679, sarah@iwf.org.uk
Andrew Miller MP
Westminster Office, 0207 219 3580
About the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF)
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:
- child abuse images hosted anywhere in the world
- criminally obscene content hosted in the UK
- incitement to racial hatred content hosted in the UK
We work in partnership with 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.
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.
As a result, only 0.2% of potentially illegal content is apparently hosted in the UK, down from 18% in 1997.
Please note that the terms "child pornography" or "child porn" can act to legitimise images which are not pornography. Rather, they are permanent records of children being sexually abused and as such should be referred to as child abuse images.
Created: Wed, November 1st, 2006 | Last Modified: Tue, December 19th, 2006
