14 DAY TRIAL // The United Kingdom is ready to kick off one of the biggest campaigns aimed against the dark side of the Internet, trying to completely eradicate it with the help of tech giants such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Facebook.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron explained at the We Protect Children global online summit that all companies would join forces to make sure that online child abuse no longer exists and all pedophiles would be punished for their actions.
In addition to help from technology companies, the United Kingdom will also employ a new group created at the National Crime Agency and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and whose main purpose will be to help identify pedophiles online.
It's worth noting that the GCHQ is being used right now to track down terrorists, which does nothing more than to confirm that the United Kingdom is trying to make its efforts as effective as possible.
“Offenders will have nowhere to hide”
Cameron had a truly inspiring speech at the conference and pointed out that offenders “will have nowhere to hide” if they are trying to distribute abusive images.
“Child exploitation online is a real crime, for which there is real punishment,” he added.
Companies such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo will try to find abusive content online and block access to it, mostly through their search engines. Social network Facebook will also remove content that violates its rules and report profiles to the GCHQ for further investigation.
Twitter will do the same with accounts that promote child abuses, while Microsoft, Google, and Mozilla will bundle additional protection in their browser. All companies would also make use of IWF digital fingerprint forensic software to block sharing of child abuse photos, the PM said.
Using the same tools as for tackling online terrorism
Cameron explained that pedophiles would be treated just as online terrorists, so the same set of tools developed to help track them down would be employed on every occasion.
“I think there is a big challenge of tackling child abuse online which we’re talking about today. There is also a big challenge of tackling terrorism online. Some of the same techniques will be necessary,” he said.
Last but not least, Cameron called for all entities worldwide to join forces against this growing threat, explaining that “internal cooperation needs to continue” to remove abusive content and punish those who are trying to distribute such photos.
You can read Cameron's speech in full below.
