Tech giants unveil new plans to tackle online child sex abuse content
Tech giants including Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter have announced a new joint effort designed to better tackle child sexual abuse content online.
The firms, speaking as part of the existing Technology Coalition of digital firms, have announced Project Protect which it says will improve the cross-industry approach to stopping child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) content appearing online.
The project includes a “five pillar” plan consisting of pushing innovation in technology to detect and stop such content, encouraging more collective action, funding more independent research, increased information sharing and greater transparency and accountability.
Last week, industry experts told MPS on the Home Affairs
Select Committee that social media firms were still not doing enough to stop the spread of online child abuse.
Robert Jones, from the National Crime Agency (NCA), and Susie Hargreaves, from the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), called on the sector to do more and argued there was no excuse why more was not already being done given the detection technology available to the major platforms.
Mr Jones told MPS the response of social media firms was being “hampered by a lack of regulation” and both he and Ms hargreaves said the government’ s proposed Online Harms regulation, which would have greater penalties for firms who fail to protect users, was vital to improving this response.
Project Protect will also establish a multi-million pound research and innovation fund to support the building of new tools to prevent the spread of CSEA content, as well as create a new forum of experts and a commitment to publish annual progress reports on industry efforts.
The Technology Coalition, formed in 2006, is a partnership of 18 technology companies of various sizes, which includes tech giants Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Snapchat.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said she welcomed the steps taken by the tech firms involved.