A world free of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) is the shared vision of INHOPE and its law enforcement, industry and NGO partners. The Global Standard project brings together the skills and experience of global experts to develop a common CSAM ontology for the categorisation of CSAM. Anticipated to have a major impact on CSAM detection and removal globally, the project will create a common ontology of CSAM categorisation which will facilitate automated translation between and among different categorisation schemas in use globally and across sectors.

Funded by the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children, the Global Standard will be a game-changer in the fight against CSAM globally.

The relationship between laws, policies and operational procedures around child sexual abuse and exploitation is extremely complex. This has resulted in a situation where different countries, sectors and organisations use distinct categorisation schemas to process CSAM reports. This makes the exchange of data and intelligence difficult due to the large volume of imagery that is reported as child sexual abuse and exploitation material to all stakeholders involved, including hotlines, the technology industry and law enforcement agencies. The different categorisation requirements also lead to the creation of different categorisation schemas that do not interoperate nor are they readily translatable.

The ontology developed as a part of this project will meet the needs of all stakeholder groups involved in the categorisation or implementation of CSEM/CSAM -based datasets for a diverse range of purposes. It will do this through standard terminology and clearly documented definitions, and by enabling differentiation between the minimum information required to assess illegality, and more granular content-based and context-based information. The ontology will form the basis of a system to determine the illegality of an image for a given jurisdiction regardless of categorisation schema and legislation.

The project will be delivered in four stages:

1. Design of the Ontology: This will be done through Focus Group meetings of the International Working Group.
2. Technical integration: Once developed, the ontology will be integrated into ICCAM - INHOPE’s secure platform for the exchange of CSAM reports between hotlines.
3. Hotline analysts training and implementation: Hotlines will categorise CSEM/CSAM according to the new ontology for a duration of approximately 1 year, which will create a sufficient volume of material to refine the ontology and create an annotated CSAM hash- set that can be used by hotlines within the existing ecosystem. This will also demonstrate the value of a common ontology that will be made available to and can be adopted by, other organisations and sectors.
4. The final products: The Ontology and the basis for a Translation Matrix will be shared with the relevant stakeholders in the sector, i.e. hotlines, the technology industry, law enforcement agencies and other relevant partners. Multi-sectoral use will follow, thereby increasing global impact through the broad application. Together, these products will enable the more effective process of CSEM/CSAM reports by hotline analysts, law enforcement officers and technology industry professionals. Ultimately, the aim is to keep more children safe from harm online and offline.
   
   

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If you have any questions, reach out to the Global Standard team at globalstandard@inhope.org.