Reporting Child Abuse Online
Have you ever come across evidence of child abuse online? If you have, I’m sure like any normal human being, you would naturally have wanted to do something about it… but if you don’t know what to do, here’s my suggestion.
I received a SPAM email this morning. Nothing unusual in that as I get loads everyday, only this one was not your usual Viagra, ‘get a stronger erection’ or ‘enlarge your penis’ nonsense! No, this email was a little more sinister. This one was recommending a website, that his ‘good friends in the UK’ were saying was a “great web site with the small kids.(in X acts)”!! They then quoted a .biz website in Russia. 
I am a fairly liberal minded person… but if there is one thing I cannot abide it is Child Abuse… especially of the sexual variety. To my mind, thiis is one of the most reprehensible and disgusting things that adults can do to innocent children and I will have NO hesitation in ALWAYS reporting incidents such as this! SPAMMERS BE WARNED!
i’m posting this for the benefit of anyone who may receive a similar SPAM email… or indeed who may stumble upon content of this nature, and perhaps not know what to do. Well, here’s how you can easily report this disgusting rubbish wih the assurance that something will be done about it!
I reported that email this morning. It only took a couple of minutes… and I feel very good about having done something that will hopefully help pull this site down… or at the very least make life more difficult for these disgusting people!
The Internet Watch Foundation is the only recognised organisation in the UK operating an internet ‘Hotline’ for the public and IT professionals to report their inadvertent exposure to potentially illegal content online.
The aim of the IWF is to minimise the availability of potentially illegal internet content, specifically:
- child sexual abuse images hosted anywhere in the world
- criminally obscene content hosted in the UK
- incitement to racial hatred content hosted in the UK
The IWF works in partnership with UK Government departments such as the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to influence initiatives and programmes developed to combat online abuse. This dialogue goes beyond the UK and Europe, to ensure greater awareness of global issues and responsibilities.
The IWF are a self-regulatory body, funded by the EU and the wider online industry. This includes internet service providers (ISPs), mobile operators and manufacturers, content service providers, telecommunications and filtering companies, search providers and the financial sector as well as blue-chip and other organisations who support us for corporate social responsibility reasons.
Through the ‘Hotline’ reporting system, the IWF help ISPs to combat abuse of their services through a ‘notice and take-down’ service by alerting them to any potentially illegal content within the IWF remit on their systems and simultaneously inviting the police to investigate the publisher.
As a result, less than 1% of potentially illegal content has apparently been hosted in the UK since 2003, down from 18% in 1997.
In partnership with many organisations, the IWF strives to create continued awareness of the role and purpose of the IWF and aim to foster trust and reassurance in the internet for current and future users.
Please note that “child pornography”, “child porn” or “kiddie porn” are not acceptable terms. The use of such language acts 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 sexual abuse images.
So… if YOU come across any of this type of content…. REPORT IT HERE: Internet Watch Foundation
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