The 2018 Annual Report of the Internet Watch Foundation is out

The Internet Watch Foundation's (IWF) 2018 Annual Report has been published on Thursday, 25 April 2019. It provides the latest data and trends on what's happening globally to tackle child sexual abuse images and videos online. 

Date 2019-05-06 Author The Internet Watch Foundation, the UK hotline Section awareness, hotlines

Adopting an innovative approach, "Once upon a year" features a true story about a child called Olivia whose rape and sexual torture is seen daily online by the IWF's dedicated team of analysts over the years, as well as the latest statistics and trends in identifying and removing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) around the world.

Among the main findings:

  • The IWF found record amounts (105,047 URLs) of child sexual abuse imagery last year due to improving its technology to help speed up the detection and assessment of the criminal images.
  • 2018's figures also show that the amount of child sexual abuse imagery hosted in the UK is at its lowest level ever recorded – 41 URLs or 0.04 per cent of the global total. In 1996, 18 per cent was hosted in the UK.
  • Every five minutes, IWF analysts find the image or video of a child like Olivia being sexually abused, and 4 out of 5 times, this is hosted in a European country.
  • Almost half (47 per cent) of all the imagery found last year was discovered in the Netherlands.
  • IWF has offered support to the Dutch organisation dealing with child sexual abuse imagery.

Find out further information by downloading a PDF of the report, reading the IWF's press release, Olivia's story and Baroness Floella Benjamin's blog.

The IWF encourages anyone working in this area to use their statistics to help inform their valuable work. For more information about the IWF, visit its INHOPE page and its website.

Find out more information about the work of the UK Safer Internet Centre (SIC) generally, including its awareness raising, helpline, hotline and youth participation services, or find similar information for Safer Internet Centres throughout Europe.

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