Internet Watch Foundation

The IWF ISPA award for most significant contribution to the fight against child abuse content online during the past decade was won by the Home Secretary’s Task Force on Child Protection on the Internet and particularly the Secretariat for continuing to provide a hugely successful multi-agency forum to enable a vast array of experts to contribute towards policies and good practice documents to make the internet a safer place for children.

 

The 2007 ISPAs, The 9th Annual UK Internet Industry Awards, took place in London yesterday (15 Feb 2007) at the Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square, in London.

 

Peter Robbins, Chief Executive, IWF said: "This award reflects the Task Force’s success in bringing together a vast array of experts in order to generate good practice documents and policies to the make the internet a safer place for its most vulnerable users. The members of the Secretariat, behind the scenes, deserve special recognition for their long-standing dedication to this important issue."

 

Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said: "Since it was formed in 2001, the Task Force has bought together key players from law enforcement, child protection bodies, Government and the UK internet industry. It's helping to make the UK the best and safest place in the world for children to use the Internet and protecting children the world over from abuse fuelled by criminal misuse of new technologies.  

 

The ISPAs are awarded to people and organisations in the industry by their peers and reflect the broad nature of the service provider sector. One of the Special ISPA Awards is the Internet Watch Foundation Award.

 

This year, the IWF made a special award to coincide with their tenth anniversary. Following nominations from the IWF funding members, the IWF Board short listed the nominations below.

Annie Mullins , Vodafone’s Global Head of Content Standards, for protecting users, with particular emphasis on young users when accessing new content services through mobile telephones and her continuing work in child protection and welfare issues.

BT, for developing and implementing the world’s first internet system to block URLs of websites that were publishing potentially illegal child abuse content.

 

John Carr, NCH Internet Consultant, for his work on the “digital divide”, seeking to ensure all children and young people can benefit from the wonderful opportunities presented by new technologies.

 

Nicholas Lansman, Secretary General, ISPA UK, for his involvement in the process that established the Internet Watch Foundation in 1996 and his longstanding support of the notice and take-down service provided by the IWF as well as his steering of the Internet Crime Forum (ICF) and active participation in the Home Office Child Protection Task Force.

 

The IWF ISPA Award 2007 was sponsored by Imtech Telecom.

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 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.

 

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.

 

As a result, only 0.4% 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.

Tel: +44 (0) 1223 237 700

 

ISPA UK is the UK's Trade Association for providers of Internet services and was established in 1995 to promote competition, self-regulation and the development of the internet industry.

 

As a trade association, membership is voluntary but the companies who choose to become members of ISPA agree to abide by the ISPA UK Code. ISPA members' allegiance to the Code means that consumers can view the ISPA UK logo as a mark of commitment to good business practice.

 

ISPA's main activity is in making representations on behalf of the industry to Government bodies, such as the Home Office, the Department of Trade and Industry and Oftel. Government and political representatives often approach ISPA for its knowledge and expertise.

 

Over 100 companies in the UK benefit from membership of ISPA.

 

Policies are agreed by the ISPA Council, a body of up to ten people selected from and representing the various interests of the membership. The Council is served by a secretariat.

 

ISPA UK was instrumental in establishing EuroISPA, a European federation of Internet Services Providers' Associations. EuroISPA voices ISPs concerns to politicians and officials at European Union level and influences EU Internet policies.

 

Tel: +44 (0) 207 609 1907

pressoffice@ispa.org.uk