- Law enforcement officials face multiple challenges in identifying victims and offenders, even with powerful tools such as the ICSE Database.
- A significant proportion (61 per cent) of analysed series contained images and videos that were both abusive and exploitative in character, and in the vast majority of the analysed series from child modelling sites, both abusive and exploitative material was visible.
- Accurate determination of core characteristics of victims such as age is a challenge, particularly across ethnic groups.
- Even though most offenders were male, there are some females involved in the abuse and exploitation of children – and more needs to be understood about this phenomenon.
- The phenomenon of "youth-produced sexual imagery" appears to present a challenge to international law enforcement, both in terms of the detection and integration of this imagery with international image databases, and the identification and classification of its victims.
Boys and very young children at greater risk of most severe online sexual exploitation
Ground-breaking research recently released by INTERPOL and ECPAT International into the online sexual exploitation of children suggests that when online images or videos of child sexual abuse depict boys or very young children, the abuse is more likely to be severe.
Related news
Safer Internet Day 2024 in Sweden
For Safer Internet Day 2024, the Swedish Safer Internet Centre chose to celebrate the whole week around the event. In this edition, we and other actors hosted several activities. The consortium took special action to encourage other actors around Sweden to do something independently. The initiative was communicated as Safer Internet Week.
Safer Internet Day in Ukraine in a time of war
While simultaneously facing the war in Ukraine, schools, youth centres, libraries and non-governmental organisations recently took part in the traditional annual Safer Internet Day (SID) celebrations, along with approximately 180 countries across the world. The Ukrainian Safer Internet Day Committee has been working all year long to reinforce the efforts of all stakeholders to bring the celebration of Safer Internet Day to each region of Ukraine.
Her Majesty the Queen of Spain participated in Safer Internet Day 2024
The Spanish National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE), dependent on the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Service, celebrated the 21st edition of Safer Internet Day on Tuesday, 6 February 2024. This year, the event was organised under the slogan “Together for a better Internet” and took place both in person and online. The in-person activities were in Madrid, where cybersecurity experts, government representatives and members of civil society met to address current and future challenges related to cybersecurity.