Published: Mon 7 Apr 2014
The Internet Watch Foundation assessed more than 50,000 reports to its hotline during 2013. Today (7 April) it reveals the latest trends in assessing and removing child sexual abuse images from the internet.
Last year the IWF saw a 31% increase in reports processed compared to 2012. It identified 13,182 webpages containing child sexual abuse imagery from 51,186 reports.
Of the 13,182 webpages:
Over half (51%) showed the rape or sexual torture of a child or children.
Over 80% were of victims aged 10 or under.
The vast majority of the victims were girls (76%). 10% were boys and 9% showed both genders.
24% of the images and videos were being sold on a commercial basis.
Most of the images and videos were hosted in North America (54%) with 43% hosted in Europe (including Russia).
The UK still leads the world at removing this criminal imagery; less than 1% of all the child sexual abuse images and videos identified were hosted in the UK. However, due to a rise in the number of UK businesses’ websites hacked to host folders of child sexual abuse images, the number of UK- hosted images increased from 73 webpages in 2012 to 92 webpages in 2013.
Susie Hargreaves, IWF CEO said: “Last year was a phenomenally busy year for our analysts assessing reports from the public. We have now more than doubled our analyst team thanks to a £1million Google grant and an increase in our funding by IWF Members.
“The IWF is a charity and we work with online companies to help them keep their services safer. We know that IWF Members are faster at removing child sexual abuse content from networks than non-members because they’re aware of their online safety responsibilities and they know that working in the online environment brings important responsibilities.
“I’m disappointed, however, that there are some UK hosting companies which are not members of IWF and which are not as fast at removing child sexual abuse imagery when we notify them that it’s on their networks. We’ll be working hard to bring these companies into the IWF family this year.”
The IWF Annual and Charity Report 2013 is published today (7 April) and is available here.
Ends
Notes to editors:
Contact: Emma Hardy, IWF Director of External Relations +44 (0) 1223 203030, +44 (0) 7929 553679 or [email protected]
Images
Click here https://www.dropbox.com/sh/edykpv6048rgdrt/8_I0PxCmZP to download:
A print quality image of Ms Susie Hargreaves, IWF CEO.
A copy of the IWF Annual and Charity Report 2013
A copy of the “You won’t tell your Mummy, will you?” image
The IWF logo
The IWF call-to-action
About the Internet Watch Foundation
The IWF is the Hotline to report:
child sexual abuse content hosted anywhere in the world;
criminally obscene adult content hosted in the UK;
non-photographic child sexual abuse images hosted in the UK.
For more information please visit www.iwf.org.uk.
The IWF is part of the UK Safer Internet Centre, working with Childnet International and the South West Grid for Learning to promote the safe and responsible use of technology.
Musubi, a tech company that supports platforms to defend and respond to trust, safety and fraud concerns, has joined the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) to help fight the spread of child sexual abuse material online.
As EU negotiations on the Child Sexual Abuse Regulation resume in Brussels, the Internet Watch Foundation places a choice before the public and policymakers – to either push for legislation that protects children online or make it easier for child sexual abuse content to spread.
Child safety software co-designed by Mumsnet will gain additional safeguards thanks to a partnership between social impact company SafetyMode and the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF).