The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is a charity dedicated to supporting victims of child sexual abuse by taking reports of, analysing and removing the images of their abuse. They provide an anonymous and safe hotline to report online child sexual abuse imagery. Find out more at iwf.org.uk
Ian, a senior internet content analyst at the Internet Watch Foundation, explains the process of reporting to them.
When should someone report something, they’ve seen to the IWF? Let’s say that you’re on your favourite social media site or surfing online. All of a sudden, you see an image or a video that you think shows a child being sexually abused. Instead of panicking and closing down the windows on your mobile device or computer, you need to report that image or video to us.
How do you make a report? Reporting to the IWF is quick and easy. And you can remain completely anonymous. Copy the URL (web address) associated with the image or video in your browser. How to do this will vary on different devices and different browsers. A quick search online will show you. To report something to the IWF, go to iwf.org.uk/report and follow the five-step process with clear information about what you’re reporting, and paste the URL into the correct field. then Must click submit.
What happens next? Every single report made to us is viewed by a real person. Either myself, or one of my colleagues, will open your report, look at the image or video and determine whether it is illegal, according to UK law. If we decide that the content you reported is illegal, we need to find out where in the world it’s hosted, so we can get it taken down. If the content is being hosted in the UK, we contact the hosting company, as well as UK police, to let them know we’ve found an illegal image or video that needs taking down immediately. Typically, we’re able to remove UK-hosted content in under two hours. If what you’ve reported is hosted outside the UK, we’ll use our huge network of international hotlines, internet industry members and overseas law enforcement partners to get that content taken down. We work with the police to try to identify that child and rescue them from the abuse. And that’s why reports are so important to us – by choosing to report, you could be saving a real child from abuse.
Posted: 10/08/2020
Source: Vodafone DP
