Record amount of child sexual abuse imagery removed from web last year

Record amounts of child sexual abuse imagery were found online and removed last year thanks to improving technology in the field of detecting and assessing such images, according to a new report.

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) said that the amount of child sex abuse imagery hosted in the UK was now at the lowest level ever recorded – 0.04 per cent of the global total – but added more still needed to be done to tackle the demand for such content.

The group said it removed 105,047 web addresses containing imagery of child sexual abuse in 2018. The internet watchdog’s annual report, called Once Upon a Year, said its analysts find an image or video of a child suffering abuse every five minutes.

The foundation’s chief executive Susie Hargreaves said: “For 23 years, we have been removing from the internet images and videos showing the sexual abuse of children.

“Despite us removing more and more images than ever before, and despite creating and using some of the world’s leading technology, it’s clear that this problem is far from being solved. The cause of the problem is the demand. Unfortunately, and as the police tell us often, there are 100,000 people sitting in the UK right now demanding images of the abuse of children.”

The IWF was founded in 1996 and works with a number of other charities, organisations and law enforcement agencies to find and remove criminal content from the internet, particularly related to child sexual abuse.