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IWF: Child abuse domains down, reports up

The Internet Watch Foundation's (IWF) Annual Report reveals an apparent fall of nearly 10 per cent in the number of international websites hosting child sexual abuse content.

The report is slightly less forthcoming about the IWF’s own little local difficulties with Wikipedia back in December, and the recipe it puts forward for best practice in this area may not receive universal acclaim. Overall, though, they are justifiably pleased with the results of their work over the last year.

The IWF was set up by the Internet Service Providers Association to monitor and take action in respect of certain types of criminal content available on the web. Its primary focus – and the area in which most of its work is done - is in child abuse imagery. However, it also keeps a watch on material deemed to be criminally obscene or racially abusive.

It runs a hotline that records complaints from the public. Where material falling into any of the above categories is found to be hosted in the UK, the matter is referred to the police for further investigation and possible action. Thus, a complaint to the IWF about a gruesome story featuring the pop group Girls Aloud will later this year give the UK its first prosecution for obscenity in respect of purely written material in over a decade.

Where material is hosted abroad, the IWF acts only in respect of child porn, assessing the seriousness of the image, and where it deems it necessary, adding the URL for the page containing the image to its blocklist. Use of this blocklist is currently voluntary, with close to 97 per cent of UK ISPs taking it. The Government is looking at whether it needs to legislate to make it compulsory for UK-based ISPs.

Click here to read more from theregister.co.uk