IWF Awareness Day 2009

Today, (Wednesday 14 October 2009) is the third Internet Watch Foundation Awareness Day, and eModeration (a founder member of the IWF) is marking the event by helping to publicise their crucial work.

Public reports help remove child sexual abuse images in UK and around the world

More people than ever are using its Hotline to report potentially illegal content on the internet and the UK is leading the way in removing child sexual abuse images.

Did you know that ....?

• IWF research shows nearly 1 in 20 UK adult internet users (or 1.5 million people) say they have been exposed to child sexual abuse images


• This research also indicates that over three quarters of those UK adult internet users who say they have stumbled across child sexual abuse images are unsure how to report them


• The majority of online child sexual abuse images identified by the IWF depict the most severe levels of sexual abuse - the abuse of child victims under 10 years old - and are made available on pay-per-view commercial websites


• Internet users should not deliberately seek out child sexual abuse images in order to report to the IWF


• The IWF an independent self-regulatory body, funded by the EU and the wider online industry, including partners such as eModeration


• It’s working. There were 5% more reports than the same period last year (27,000 reports) – but only 20% of these were confirmed by the IWF as images of child sexual abuse.


• Almost all of these images (over 99%) were traced to servers outside the UK


• When an image is hosted outside the UK, the IWF acts immediately to inform our partner Hotline and law enforcement agencies in the relevant country to get the images removed and those responsible investigated.


• It is extremely rare to trace child sexual abuse content to the UK. During the first three quarters of this year, the IWF has issued only 25 notices to companies in the UK about the abuse of their networks for the distribution of these images. Each notice was quickly complied with and every identified instance of online child sexual abuse content in the UK was removed within a day of notification.

Eve Salomon, IWF Chair, said:

“With the help of our Hotline, the UK has an excellent record in eradicating child sexual abuse images on the internet in partnership with 35 other Hotlines around the world and with the support of our 100 industry members. These websites are reducing in number globally and where they are sited in the UK, they are removed extremely quickly.
“If you stumble across child sexual abuse images, it’s crucial you report it to us. We are focussed on the swift removal of these images and helping the international effort to bring those responsible to justice and rescue children from sexual exploitation. Your reports to our Hotline really do make a difference.”

IWF Awareness Day is supported by many of the organisation’s 100 member companies and partners who unite to help publicise the UK Hotline and the importance of the IWF’s work. In 2008, Awareness Day led to increased reporting to the Hotline and an 18% increase in awareness of the IWF amongst UK internet users. The IWF hopes to increase that this year.

To report a website or for more information the about IWF, please visit http://www.iwf.org.uk/, and for further information about the IWF, contact Sarah Robertson, IWF, 01223 237700, 07929 553679, sarah@iwf.org.uk