Livestreamed child sexual abuse means that a perpetrator in another location orders an abuse that is then documented and livestreamed to this perpetrator. The perpetrator can instruct and pay for the abuse in real time, which means a transaction can be detected. To address this, ECPAT's Sweden Financial Coalition launched "Project Indicators" with the goal of identifying indicators and working methods that banks can use to detect these payments.

The project’s first step was to carry out a case study to identify relevant indicators. The case study resulted in indicators for typical offenders, payment methods and sums used to pay for the abuse. These indicators were then used in test runs on anonymised transaction data from a bank. Through these test runs, suspicious transactions could be identified and reported to the Financial Intelligence for further investigation. The transactions reported to the Financial Police were marked with the heading "suspected CSE" (Child Sexual Exploitation). This made it possible for the Financial Intelligence Service to identify these cases more easily.

"Project Indicators" has shown that it is possible for banks to detect and report payments for livestreamed child sexual abuse. It is therefore crucial that these actors also fulfill their responsibilities and act.

Read more about the indicators and ECPAT's work in the report here.