March 16, 2020

The Government has announced that a “first-of-its-kind” blueprint to keep children safe on the internet, drafted by the Five Country partners, has been endorsed by major tech companies.

At an event at the US Department of Justice, the Voluntary Principles to Counter Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse were formally launched. They are a set of 11 actions tech firms should take to ensure children are not sexually exploited on their platforms.

These range from pledges to stop existing and new child sexual abuse material appearing on platforms, taking steps to stop the livestreaming of abuse, identify and stop grooming and predatory behaviour, and ensuring they are ahead of the evolving threat.

In July the Five Country Ministerial, made up of the governments of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA, agreed to draft the principles, given the global nature of child sexual abuse. They were written in consultation with technology industry representatives.

Among the companies to endorse the principles were Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Snap and Roblox. At a roundtable discussion in Washington, attendees from the Five Countries discussed the voluntary principles and the best way to ensure tech companies action them.

The Government says that the launch of the principles comes against the backdrop of more criminals from across the world using evolving tactics to target children online. Last year, the tech industry reported 69 million child sexual abuse images and videos, up by over 50% in just 12 months. According to the National Strategic Assessment more than 3.5 million accounts are now registered to the world’s most depraved dark web sites. In coordinated operational activity against online child sexual exploitation and abuse, the National Crime Agency and UK police arrest around 500 child sex offenders a month and safeguard about 700 children a month.

In collaboration with industry and other stakeholders, the 11 principles are split into six different categories:

• preventing child sexual abuse material from appearing;
• target online grooming and predatory behaviour;
• target live streaming;
• a specialised approach for children;
• victim/survivor considerations collaborate and respond to evolving threat; and
• search

The WePROTECT Global Alliance, which currently comprises of 97 governments, 25 technology companies and 30 civil society organisations, will promote the principles across industry and encourage support for the initiative. This wide support will help ensure the principles are taken forward by the technology industry.

The Government says that it will also soon be launching a Child Sexual Abuse Strategy, which will set out an ambitious range of cross-government activity to bear down on offenders, safeguard children and support victims. Recently, the Government also announced £30 million extra funding for law enforcement. To read the Government’s press release in full, click here.