Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime
Heard. Respected. Victims First.
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Special Report:
What More Needs to be Done—Recommendations
9. Stemming the Flow of Child Sexual Abuse Images over the Internet
“The simplicity of getting material…it’s close to mind-boggling. I have never understood how come the whole thing wasn’t shut down. You search for the word ‘baby’ and it will find stuff there…it’s easy….”
–Michael Briere, murderer of Holly Jones143
“I never escape the fact that pictures of my abuse are out there forever. Everything possible should be done to stop people looking at pictures of child abuse. Each time someone looks at pictures of me, it’s like abusing me again.”144
–16-year-old girl named Sandra
“Growing up and trying to fit into a normal life after so much abuse is hard. I have nightmares, flashbacks and struggle with everyday tasks that most people take for granted…. There is a haunting that surrounds me constantly, reminding me that I don’t have control over keeping my past a secret. The pictures that were taken when I was so young are still out there. Who knows where they are and how many people have seen them. I wonder if they will show up when I least expect it. I am away from abuse now, but know that someone could be pleasuring himself while looking at my pictures or showing them to kids.”
–A victim145
There is unfortunately no magic button or software that can locate and destroy all child sexual abuse images on the Internet. Once an image is released, it is impossible to get back. The image becomes part of an endless cycle of abuse as it is shared by countless predators and may be used to groom other victims.
That being said, there are measures that can be taken by both government and the private sector to help curb the spread of the material and deter abusers from accessing it.
At the 2007 G8 Justice and Home Affairs Ministers meeting, all Ministers recognized that the war against Internet predators could not be won by law enforcement alone.146 They acknowledged that the private sector has an important role in protecting the world’s children.
Working with the private sector
There are some positive examples of industry leaders accepting responsibility for their role in preventing the spread of child sexual abuse images. For example, AOL—an online service provider—developed the Image Database and Filtering Process, which allows AOL to proactively and automatically locate known child sexual abuse images moving through its system, delete them and route a report to law enforcement.147 In one of its first cases, AOL notified the NCMEC that an AOL user had tried to upload a single image to his email account. Within a week, the local police had a search warrant and arrested a California man. His arrest led to the identification of 35 other people involved in trading images. On top of it, the California man, who was a youth baseball coach, admitted he had abused a child.
MSN uses a filtering tool to review images uploaded to MSN Spaces and MSN Groups. Images that are flagged as potential child sexual abuse images are reviewed and, if deemed appropriate, a report is sent to the NCMEC.148 MSN closes the site and preserves the entire site, account information and associated files.
This software used by MSN and AOL focuses on images that are a part of the NCMEC database. The technology is not a cure-all as it does not apply to new images, but it is an important first step. If all ISPs participated, it could have an impact on the child sexual abuse image industry as a whole by helping to prevent the dissemination of child sexual abuse images, thereby preventing further exploitation of some victims.
The same type of technology could be developed in Canada to identify and remove images that are found within the Canadian NCECC child sexual abuse imagery database. By blocking the dissemination of these photos, Canada could have a real impact on stemming the flow of these abusive images.
Project Cleanfeed is another example of a successful private initiative. The U.K.-based filter helps participants, such as British Telecom, to block approximately 35,000 attempts to visit illegal child abuse sites every day.149
Cybertip.ca, run by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection,150 operates a Canadian Cleanfeed project and provides a list of specific foreign-hosted Internet addresses associated with images of child sexual abuse to participating ISPs.151 These ISPs then use the technology to filter or prevent access to those sites. On average, Cybertip.ca receives over 700 reports and 800,000 hits to its website per month. The reports have resulted in dozens of arrests, the eliminations of thousands of websites and the rescue of numerous children.
In Canada, some companies voluntarily participate in Project Cleanfeed to block foreign websites hosting prepubescent images.152 Unlike the U.K., Canada’s Cleanfeed targets only “prepubescent” material so that participating ISPs do not unintentionally block legal sites that include females over the age of 18 (many of whom are advertised as looking younger).153
As of February 2009, only eight of the more than 400 ISPs in Canada participated in Cleanfeed Canada.154 Fortunately, most of the largest ISPs, such as Telus and Bell, do participate, which means that almost 90 percent of all Canadian Internet subscribers are covered by the Cleanfeed program. While those ISPs that are voluntarily participating should be congratulated, every ISP in Canada should be obligated to participate in this initiative.
Since 2006, there have been 13,000 URLs155 added to Cybertip.ca’s list. Almost half of these sites involve sexual acts with children and almost 90 percent involve children under 8.156 One ISP identified 2,900 attempts in a 24-hour period to access a blocked website.157 Despite these statistics, it is important to keep in mind that 80 percent of millions of sites still leaves hundreds of thousands accessible.
There are those who will argue that stricter laws or filters interfere with regular, legitimate sites. Cybertip.ca has addressed this by putting in place a thorough appeal process for someone who feels legal material has been blocked.
Furthermore, the potential negatives of having stronger filters or a more restrictive approach are generally limited to prohibiting access to a site that advertises adult females who look like they might be 12. Given the extensive appeal process, we do not believe this current limitation is justifiable.
RECOMMENDATION 9—That the federal government introduce legislation to require all ISPs to block access to sites containing images of children who are or are depicted as being under the age of 18 years, and block the distribution of known child sexual abuse images based on images collected by the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre.