IGF 2014

Today, there seems to be more child abuse materials being circulated online than ever before. Whatever we have been doing up to now to get these images (stills, videos and live streaming) off the Internet has not been working well enough. Emerging forms of abuse involve one-time live streaming transmission of sexual abuse of children. Peer2Peer environments have superseded the web and other online environments as the major source of child abuse materials and the emergence of anonymous or hard to trace forms of electronic payment such as virtual currencies, appear to be online a new growth in commercial traffic in child abuse material.
Although there is clearly an important agenda which seeks to address the underlying causes of the child abuse depicted in all kinds of images, as well as a need to improve the speed with which law enforcement can identify victims in real life, rescue them, then pass them on to appropriate care or help agencies to aid their recovery, another key part of the challenge involves seeking to disrupt and reduce the traffic in child abuse images to the largest extent possible.
Given the volumes involved it is self-evident that technical solutions will play an increasingly important part in this struggle. Microsoft has produced PhotoDNA to deal with still images. Google is working on a similar product for videos. Other companies are working on or have developed similar or complementary measures. Google and Microsoft have both taken steps to reduce the potential for their search engines to be abused by those with sexual interests in children. "Splash pages" are now being deployed to discourage certain types of users from using search engines to locate child abuse materials.
This meeting of the Dynamic Coalition will look critically at the array of technical tools now being used in the fight against online child abuse material. How well are the tools working and, crucially, how widely are they being deployed? What more can be done to encourage wider take up? Is the Financial Services industry doing enough to interdict the abuse of their systems in relation to commercial exchanges?
We will organize a round table followed by an open discussion with the audience/members.