INTERNET
Child porn complaints up 12pc in Ireland
29-03-2007
by Charlie Taylor
Nearly 3,000 reports concerning online child pornography were made by Irish citizens during 2006, according to new figures released on Thursday.
The fourth report of the Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland (ISPAI), which covers reports collated by the organisation's complaints hotline (www.hotline.ie), indicated the association received 2,677 reports of suspected illegal online content last year, up 12 percent on the 2,039 registered in 2005.
The ISPAI forwards any information it receives from the general public to Gardai and Interpol for criminal investigation.
Of the reports received in 2006, 423 were confirmed as illegal by the hotline, an increase of 10.6 percent versus the previous year.
In every case the ISPAI traced the content to ascertain its origin and found that none of the material was located or sent from inside this country. Moreover, INHOPE, the International Association of Internet Hotlines, of which the ISPAI is a member, confirmed that no other hotline has found material originating from within Ireland.
According to a study released by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) in July 2006, a whopping 51 percent of child abuse images found online are hosted in the US, with 15 percent originating in Russia, 12 percent from Japan and 9 percent in Spain.
The ISPAI's general manager Paul Durrant said that while he was relieved Ireland wasn't hosting illegal material, there was no room for complacency.
"The ISPAI is very pleased by the fact that no illegal child pornography reported to the hotline was traced to a source in Ireland. Having this corroborated by the other INHOPE member hotlines is very reassuring, said Durrant."
In another positive sign, the latest report provides data which suggests that growth in the amount of child pornography which can be openly encountered on the internet may be slowing down. This is based on rates of expected reporting relative to the percentage of reports confirmed by the hotline as referring to child pornography.
Furthermore, spam e-mail that advertises suspected illegal pornographic content was reported far less frequently in 2006 than in previous years. Such spam represented 50 percent of complaints filed with the hotline in 2005, but just 35 percent in 2006. Back in 2001 suspicious spam represented 85 percent of all reports.
"Given the masses of spam generally being experienced today this decline is remarkable. Spam is the way organised criminals promote their child pornography pay-sites. If Hotlines are to find and disrupt these pay-sites, it is imperative that the public report the spam that leads to them.
"While it is understandable that people are increasingly ignoring and deleting spam, if anyone spots a spam in their inbox with a subject line that implies child pornography for sale, please report it before deleting it," concluded Durrant.
The hotline run by the Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland, was set up in 1999 to combat child pornography. It also accepts reports of other illegal content such as incitement to racial hatred and internet fraud schemes.
The Irish hotline receives 50 percent co-funding from the European Commission's Safer Internet Action Plan with the rest coming from the ISPAI.
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