Following on from our article on point 6 of EU strategy for a more effective fight against child sexual abuse:

7. Galvanise industry efforts to ensure the protection of children in their products

National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received almost 17 million reports from companies voluntarily detecting Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) on their platforms in 2019 alone. While some companies are doing a lot to combat CSAM, others are not so proactive. Facebook sent almost 16 million reports (94% of the total that year), while other US-based companies sent fewer than 1 000 reports, and some fewer than 10.

There are also concerns over the application of end-to-end encryption to messaging services. Without accompanying measures this could reduce the number of total reports of child sexual abuse in the EU (and globally) by more than half. This is because the detection tools currently used do not work on end-to-end encrypted communications.

In 2020, the Commission began supporting industry efforts in the fight against CSAM via the EU Internet Forum. This Forum is hoped to improve collaboration between private and public actors by providing a common space to share best practices and challenges faced.

INHOPE collaborates with industrial partners such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Twitter in order to together find solutions for how to tackle the spread of CSAM on their networks. INHOPE-organised events such as the recent INHOPE Summit, to create a space for private companies, so often in competition with each other, to share best practices and technological expertise, enabling resources and tools to be applied where they’re needed most.

In 2019 NCMEC received the following number of reports from Electronic Service Providers:

• Amazon: 8
• Apple Inc.: 205
• Facebook: 15,884,511
• Google: 449,283
• Snapchat: 82,030
  
  

We encourage you to find out about the how the companies whose products and services you use are combating the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material on their networks and platforms.

Read about Point 8 of the EU strategy for a more effective fight against child sexual abuse here.

Source: EU strategy for a more effective fight against child sexual abuse