Internet Watch Foundation (IWF)
Relying heavily on support from the public, charitable giving bodies and the tech community, IWF assess and remove images and videos of children suffering sexual abuse. Set up in 1996 by the internet industry, IWF was designed to provide an internet hotline for the public and IT professionals to report potentially criminal online content within their remit to be the ‘notice and take-down’ body for this content.
Last year IWF assessed and removed over 252,000 web pages containing hundreds and thousands of images and videos of children suffering sexual abuse.
Giving Children a Voice
“Girls were seen in 97% of the imagery we helped to remove. Almost 7 in 10 instances of child sexual abuse involved 11–13-year-olds. The younger the child, the more severe the abuse. Over 1400 reports assessed by our team were confirmed to show children under the age of two suffering sexual abuse.”
IWF work in partnership with the internet and tech industries, governments, law enforcement agencies, the education sector, charities and non-profits globally to ensure that they minimise, disrupt and stop child sexual abuse images and videos being hosted and available around the world.
IWF believe that this is the only way to tackle a problem that doesn’t respect borders, laws or the rights of children worldwide. Collectively we are giving children a voice.
Expert Global Analysts
“We currently assess over 7,000 reports per week. It’s a tough job, but our analysts are global experts in the field. We support them to do an extraordinary job”.
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF)
Tracing, Locating, Removing Content
IWF have highly trained analysts who manually assess each report that is processed against UK legal guidelines. Trusted by the police and internet industries across the globe due to the accuracy of their assessments, their jobs are crucial. Websites can be hosted from anywhere in the world and how IWF take action on criminal images and videos will depend entirely on where they are hosted.
Using technical internet tracing techniques to locate criminal content, IWF’s expert analysts use three methods to trace and determine the geographical location of the hosted server at that time of assessment.
These methods enable them to pass on accurate details to the intended authorities or allows them to take action themselves in partnership with the company whose services are being abused.
Senso in Partnership with IWF
Senso are proud to support IWF in their mission to detect, disrupt, remove and prevent online child sexual abuse. Senso became a member of the IWF in 2017 and have supported them every year since.
Our safeguarding platform offers unprecedented safeguarding capabilities, protecting users using school-owned devices whether they are in school or learning from home. Senso monitors and indicates any users who are vulnerable or at risk. The relevant staff are alerted, allowing them to respond to those who may be a risk to others or who present harmful or off-task behaviour.
Senso’s cloud-based solutions have enabled thousands of schools in the UK and US to monitor, manage and protect their students whilst online. We are committed to doing what’s necessary to ensure children are protected online with the help from partners like IWF.
If you want to know more about IWF, or how you can support their cause, you can find their website here: Eliminating Child Sexual Abuse Online – Internet Watch Foundation | IWF
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