The Turks and Caicos Islands helps the IWF mark 20 years of fighting online child sexual abuse imagery
More than a quarter of a million webpages showing children being sexually abused are identified and removed in 20-year history.
Turks and Caicos Islands Reporting Portal was established in June 1st to provide a quick and easy way for citizens to report online images and videos of child sexual abuse, to a safe and anonymous hotline. The Turks and Caicos Islands I joined forces with the IWF (Internet Watch Foundation) in the global battle to remove online of child sexual abuse imagery – and in doing so became part of a proud history.
Assistant Superintendent Mary Durham says: “The IWF’s has done an incredible job in identifying and removing a huge number of images and videos of online child sexual abuse over their 20-year life. We are now part of that history, and a joint mission help protect victims of this abuse and make the internet a safer place.”
• At 11.21am on 21 October, 1996 the very first report was made to the newly-formed IWF
• 20 years later: 699,403 reports have been assessed by the IWF’s analysts, with,
281,781* of those showing the sexual abuse of children. One report might show one, or thousands of images or videos of sexual abuse (October 1996 to September 30, 2016). Only 0.2% of the world’s known child sexual abuse imagery is hosted in the UK today. That figure was 18% back in 1996 when the IWF was founded.
An infographic has been created charting the history of the charity, along with a film featuring leaders from top internet giants, and IWF Members: BT, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, and the parents of April Jones. April was a five-year-old British girl who was murdered by a man, within three hours of him looking at child sexual abuse imagery online.
A selection of milestones:
• 11.21am on 21 October, 1996: The very first report was made to the newly formed IWF.
• 1996: 18% of the world’s known child sexual abuse imagery was hosted in the UK.
• 1996: 0.08 billion web users globally.
• 1998: Google was founded.
• 2004: Facebook was launched. IWF launched the URL list; a URL can contain one or 1000 images or videos.
• 2005: One billion web users globally.
• 2006: The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre, a specialist police body, was founded.
• 2007: Apple launch the iPhone.
• 2010: WhatsApp and Instagram were launched.
• 2012: April Jones, five, and Tia Sharp, 12, were murdered. It emerged that their murderers had been viewing images and videos of child sexual abuse. There was a public outcry.
• 2013: Google pledged £1 million to the work of IWF to recruit five new analysts.
• 2014: The first global WeProtect summit was held in the UK. The Prime Minister David Cameron gave the IWF the right to actively search for images of child sexual abuse.
• 2014: IWF launched its first overseas reporting portal in Mauritius.
• 2015: One billion people used Facebook in a single day.
• 2016: 3.4 billion web users.
• 2016: IWF revealed it identified in one year 68,092 webpages of child sexual abuse imagery. That’s an increase of 417% over two years.
• 2016: 0.2% of the world’s known child sexual abuse imagery is hosted in the UK.
• June 1st 2016 Turks and Caicos Islands joined the IWF Foundation
The full IWF infographic can be assessed here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ajt4fycm7vzx9zx/IWF%20infographic%20timeline.mov?dl=0
IWF CEO Susie Hargreaves OBE says: “What’s truly shocking is not always the numbers of reports to our hotline, but what is shown in those images and videos. Each and every one of those quarter of a million reports is the record of the sexual abuse of a child. These are real children. The majority are under 10-years-old. Some are younger than two.
“It’s great that the Turks and Caicos Islands has become part of our ground-breaking initiative, to share our work and provide a first class Reporting Portal to protect citizens. Child sexual abuse imagery is a global problem and we can only fight it with a truly global solution. The Turks and Caicos Islands is now part of our history and our solution.”
Link to the IWF 20 anniversary film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BLqKmH_YCc
IWF Reporting Portals have already been successfully established in Mauritius, Uganda, Akrotiri and Dhekelia, Anguilla, Ascension Islands, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands (BVI), Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat ,Pitcairn Islands, Tristan Da Cunha, Turks and Caicos, St Helena and most recently, India.
What is the IWF Reporting Portal?
By working closely with internet companies, the IWF (a non-for-profit organisation) helps people who stumble across online child sexual abuse images and videos (sometimes known as child pornography) to report it anonymously, via a web-based reporting hotline.
A team of experienced IWF analysts then work directly with the internet industry and law enforcement, to have any abusive imagery removed quickly.
The advantage of establishing an IWF Reporting Portal is that any reports of suspected online child sexual abuse imagery generated in the Turks and Caicos Islands are assessed directly by one of IWF’s analysts. These analysts are respected globally for their experience.
Today, the IWF Hotline provides one of the most successful reporting mechanisms in the world. Their analysts are considered world-leaders for their expertise.
Contact 2326096 for more information.