Plans to combat online child sexual exploitation announced

The Home Secretary Sajid Javid has announced a series of measures to tackle child online sexual exploitation, including funding for law enforcement, intelligence agencies and a new prevention drive.

He also called on the technology industry to work in partnership with each other and with government to stop online child sexual abuse, sharing solutions and best practice to improve the response.

Sajid Javid said: "I’ve been impressed by the progress the likes of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and Apple have made on counter-terrorism. Now I want to see the same level of commitment for child sexual exploitation. In recent years there has been some good work in this area. But the reality is that the threat has evolved quicker than industry’s response and industry has not kept up. And there are some companies that refuse to take it seriously.

"If web giants do not take more measures to remove this type of content from their platforms, then I won’t be afraid to take action."

Javid is calling on technology companies to block child sexual abuse material as soon as companies detect it being uploaded; stop child grooming taking place on their platforms; and to work with government and law enforcement to shut down live-streamed child abuse.

Part of the measures include a £21.5 million investment in law enforcement over the next 18 months to reduce the volume of offending and pursue the most hardened and dangerous abusers. The majority of this funding will go to UK law enforcement and intelligence agencies to tackle the most tech-savvy and dedicated abusers.

Investigators are facing a constant uphill struggle because of the significant numbers of offenders committing preventable crimes, such as viewing and sharing images and videos that are easily accessible online. The technology exists for industry to design-out these offences and to stop this material from being viewed. Some online platforms have taken important steps to improve safety, but the government is asking for industry to invest in preventing these online offences from happening in the first place.

A further £2.6 million will be made available for prevention work, including to the child protection charity the Lucy Faithfull Foundation. The charity works to reduce demand for online sexual images of children and prevent offending before it occurs.

The Home Secretary will be convening a meeting of industry experts in the US, in partnership with Microsoft to challenge companies to work together to come up with tools to detect online child grooming which will then be offered for free to other companies.

£250,000 is being made available to support new ideas on how to detect and disrupt live streaming of abuse.

A new international network of Government advisers will be established on serious and organised crime who will be stationed around the world and will help coordinate and drive action to tackle child sexual abuse in different regions.

What's more, a working group will be established with business and the advertising industry to look at stopping profit being generated from adverts on child abuse websites.

 

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