The Global Standard project has the goal of creating a common language/ontology for the categorisation of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) schemas. This project, funded by the End Violence Against Children Fund, is running for 2 years until 2024. However, the ontology created in these two years will have a life beyond this funding structure.

What will happen during this 2-year project, and what will happen after? The ontology development and use stages will happen in 4 phases.

Phase 1: Ontology development & launch

Progress: Ontology Sub-group engaged in perfecting existing ontology.

The third and final Focus Group will be held in January 2023. The tentative launch of the ontology will be done at the INTERPOL CAC meeting in early March 2023. The ontology will also be launched in other industry & hotline events. Once the document has been created, the group will then focus on the packaging, distribution & translations of the verified ontology.

Phase 2: Technology development, Annotation of material & Training of hotline analysts

The technical plans will be finalized by March 2023 and development will begin in April – June 2023. Once complete, the annotation work by hotline analysts starts. Throughout the last half of 2023 and the first half of 2024, there will be ongoing training of analysts and revision of ontology.

Phase 3: Categorization Matrix

• Classification schemas/legislations broken down with the ontology categories/metadata.
• Documentation made available to all key stakeholders.
• Laying the foundation for future mapping between classification schemas & legislations.

Phase 4: Rosetta Stone: System mapping classifications schemas & inference model

• A specific system will enable the translation of classification schemas/legislations by using annotated material following the Global Standard ontology.
• Hash sharing/Hash matching will be enabled using the ontology as a translation tool.
• Probability of what definitively is in CSAM and what definitively isn’t will be easy to determine.