The Global Standard Project has been running for 6 months now, and a lot of progress has been made in this short period of time. Here are the highlights of the project up to this point:

June: First Focus Group

The project was launched in June 2022 with a First Focus Group. Participants from around the world came together as the “Global Standard” team at INHOPE’s offices in Amsterdam on 21st & 22nd June for a 2-day workshop to set the scene of the project and develop a shared vision for a common methodology to translate between existing categorisation schemas and ontologies for child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

July: Establishing Subgroups

After a successful First Focus Group meeting in June 2022, key experts have been meeting online to discuss key aspects of creating a common approach to categorizing CSAM, divided into four sub-groups: Ontology development, Technology, Outreach & Communications, and Law & policy.

September: Second Focus Group

A group of experts came together for the second Global Standard Focus Group at the headquarters of NCMEC in Alexandria on 22 and 23 September 2022. The two days of meetings were made up of series of practical and focused discussions on the progress of the four thematic sub-groups – Ontology, Technology, Law & Policy, and Outreach & Communications.

The attendees identified the key activities to be undertaken by the Global Standard sub-groups:

• Identifying and accommodating different use cases for the ontology.
• Addressing data-related challenges.
• Addressing terminology and language challenges.
• Prioritising analyst and investigator well-being in decision-making about annotation and training.
• Developing name and branding.
• Identifying key stakeholders and an outreach strategy to get them on board.
• Finding a solution for custodianship of a) the ontology and b) the data model/categorisation matrix.

November: Presentation of the project and ontology to INHOPE member hotlines at the hotline training meeting.

December: Evaluation of subgroup progress

Subgroup activities for the past 6 months:

• The ontology subgroup has created a first version of the document to send to experts for comments on both content and language. The INTERPOL DevOps group will be using and providing input on the ontology at their meeting in 2023 to further refine the document, and the ontology will be launched at the INTERPOL Specialist Group meeting in March
• The technology subgroup is looking into how to best realise the translation matrix and are outlining the technical specifications for implementation into ICCAM. Future topics for discussion will be data quality and future means of assurances.
• The communications and outreach subgroup have been developing audience-specific messaging matrix for different target audiences promoting the use of the ontology, and has been creating a pool of potential names for the ontology.
• The law and policy subgroup has created a criteria matrix to determine the eligible organization for custodianship and maintenance of the ontology after the Global Standard Project ends. Potential custodians have been identified and will be evaluated against the criteria matrix.