CA Investigates: The role of the Internet Watch Foundation

Targeting the profit margin
The publication of child abuse images is a commercial venture – a taboo product for which some people will pay handsomely.

As the IWF and its partner hotlines around the world have no power to bring the criminals behind child abuse images to book, the next best strategy is to drive up the cost of running sites that offer the material, making the business of abuse less profitable.

“It’s clear that the fact the images remain available compounds the agony for victims. There is a limit to what police forces worldwide can do to stamp out the abuse itself, so the next goal is to make it unprofitable,” said Ms Robertson.

The next IWF Awareness Day is 24 October and you can learn more about the Foundation’s work at www.iwf.org.uk.

Our verdict
The IWF is an example of industry self-regulation that actually works. The result is that virtually no child abuse images and comparatively little illegal material of other kinds is stored on UK web servers. It may be tempting, therefore, to view illegal content as somebody else’s problem – but that would be wrong.

While the images aren’t stored here, some are produced in the UK. “Some of the illegal images we find feature British children being abused in their own home, usually by family members or friends,” said a representative of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (www.ceop.gov.uk).
As web users, we all have a responsibility to report
illegal content.

Reporting illegal content
You can report three types of illegal content to the IWF:

• Child sexual abuse images hosted anywhere in the world.
• Criminally obscene material hosted in the UK.
• Incitement to racial hatred content hosted in the UK.

‘Criminally obscene material’ does not include hardcore pornography that depicts adults in consensual sex. You may find this offensive but it is not illegal. The definition would include images or video of rape, bestiality or torture and may soon include drawings or animations of child abuse.