Controlling Access To Indecent Images

Controlling Access to Indecent Images: Mediated Internet Communications

Professor Ian Walden Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary, University of London Vice-chair, Internet Watch Foundation

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Introductory remarks ●

Filtering communications & law enforcement – As crime prevention (blocking) ●

From virus scanning to child sexual abuse images

– As criminal investigation (monitoring) ●

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Monitoring content & traffic data

Interference with rights – Freedom of expression & censorship ●

Impartation & receipt

– Privacy ●

Case study: Internet Watch Foundation (IWF)

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IWF ●

Self-regulatory (charitable status) – Over 80 member companies (since 1996)

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Remit – Child sexual abuse images anywhere in the world ●

Pseudo-photographs, tracings (CGI ?)

– Obscene publications in the UK ●

Extreme pornography provisions

– Racist (hate speech) material in the UK ●

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Religious hatred and sexual orientation

Objectives – Remove content/availability & support law enforcement?

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Notice & Take Down ●

‘Hotline’ reporting service – Analysis & investigation of source/location

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Domestic content - notification to ISP ‘host’ – From 18% to < 1%

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Foreign content – Mainly located in the US – INHOPE Network ●

Over 30 members

– Law enforcement agencies ●

e.g. US FTC action against Pricewert LLC (June 2009)

– But not (currently) foreign hosts

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Blocking access ●

Filtering database – ‘the CAIC list’ – URLs for child sexual abuse images – Taken by ISPs & search engines, e.g. BT’s ‘Cleanfeed’ ●

95% of domestic internet access service providers – Government threat of mandation – Children’s Charities Coalition On Internet Safety, Digital Manifesto – EU proposal for a framework decision (March 2009), art. 18

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Filtering web-based traffic, not P2P & other services Deterrent, not a policing tool – Target population: inadvertent & casual users

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Investigate creator/distributors or remove content? – Take-down times

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Other initiatives ●

Domain names – Registries & registrars ●

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75% of commercial child sexual abuse domains are linked to just 10 Registries/ Registrars

Payment providers – Commercial ‘pay-per-view’ & organised crime ● ●

IWF 2008 Annual Report: 3000 sites Pre-paid credit cards

– European Financial Coalition ●

Combating the commercial distribution of child abuse

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Data integrity ●

Source – Reports received – Internal investigations

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Determination of potential criminal illegality – Law enforcement trained (e.g. CEOP) ● ●

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Court endorsed 5-level categorisation Indecent v obscene material

Accuracy – Minimising collateral intrusion ●

Wikipedia incident (December 2008) – Text & image data – Communication attributes

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Transparency ●

User notification – Prior notice ●

Data protection obligations – e.g. The Telecommunications (Lawful Business Practice) (Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000

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Publish scheme FAQ & list of participants

– Splash pages ●

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http://404 (technical error) or http://403 (prohibited page)

List appeal mechanism – e.g. Wikipedia incident (Scorpions album cover) ●

contextual considerations

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Accountability ●

Independent board – Majority non-industry representatives ●

e.g. child protection, legal

– External oversight ●

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Periodic independent reviews

Public function/authority? – Judicial review, subject to FOI laws – Public law enforcement activity? ●

Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP)

– Democratic mandate ●

‘prescribed by law’

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Concluding remarks