European conference on the global fight against online child sexual abuse content

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), the UK Safer Internet Centre’s hotline for the public to report online child sexual abuse content, encountered 9,550 reports of webpages that contained potentially child sexual abuse images in 2012. Of this total number, only 73 webpages were actually hosted in the UK. As such, international cooperation is of the utmost importance to effectively combat online child sexual abuse images.

In order to improve the exchange of experiences and best practices at international level, the IWF will organise a conference in the European Parliament in Brussels, bringing together several international stakeholders to discuss the global fight against online child sexual abuse content.

The conference includes speakers from the European Commission, the Council of Europe, the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the IWF, the South African Hotline, EUROPOL and Facebook.

The panel discussions will be moderated by TV’s Kate Russell, technology reporter and author, and the closing statement will be provided by INHOPE, the International Association of Hotlines. The conference is hosted by MEP Emma McClarkin (ECR, UK) and organised with the support from Facebook.

You can register and see the agenda at www.iwf.org.uk/conference.