Policing UK 2013 - Police Federation

POLICING CHALLENGES
“Sites hosting criminal content do not work
to the same time scales as the judicial
process. They disappear, or move to different
countries, all at the flick of a switch.”
evidence. This takes place in quick time
and in consultation with CEOP.
When the content is hosted abroad,
IWF informs the hotline in that country
(or the law enforcement agency if there
is no hotline), for them to commence
their own legal procedures. While this
is on-going, IWF places the URL of the
image on a list of Child Sexual Abuse
Images, which the industry in the UK
voluntarily uses to prevent inadvertent
access to these images.
Does it work?
Yes, with notable successes. Over 16
years the IWF has:
assessed more than 390,000 URLs;
removed 92,000 URLs hosting images
of child sexual abuse;
expedited content removal in the UK
to less than one hour;
reduced the amount of child sexual
abuse content hosted in the UK to less
than 1 per cent;
cut the time taken to remove content
hosted abroad from an average of one
month in 2009 to 12 days in 2011.
Why does it work?
There is no doubt that the formidable
working relationships forged between
the IWF, police and industry play a
significant part in the UK’s success in
tackling this crime.
However, it is the currently much
maligned self-regulatory approach that
makes these successes possible. There
is constant pressure from open rights
groups that decisions as to what should
and should not be blocked on the
internet should only be made by a judge.
There are two compelling counters to
this view.
Firstly, IWF analysts train with
the police, and operate strictly to the
Sentencing Council’s Guidelines on
child sexual abuse imagery. In 2011,
six analysts processed 41,877 reports –
13,161 of which were confirmed to be
criminal. Imagine the judicial system
in the UK attempting to process this
volume of material annually, not to
mention the cost to the taxpayer – the
IWF is funded 80 per cent by the online
industry and 20 per cent by the EU.
Secondly, sites hosting criminal
content do not work to the same time
scales as the judicial process. They
disappear, or move to different countries,
all at the flick of a switch. By the time a
reported image had been assessed by a
judge, the likelihood of that image being
in the same place, or even still in the UK
is minimal. The site would remain live,
and the child victims would continue to
be exploited.
To deal with this particular type of
content, it requires an independent view,
and a quick, global response network.
That is exactly what the self-regulatory
approach of the IWF and the UK
industry achieves.
International case studies
In February 2012, an analyst assessed
an image that had been reported by
the public. Although the image was not
criminal under UK law, the analyst was
able to identify that it was likely to have
originated in Australia.
This finding was passed to the
Australian hotline (ACMA). ACMA
quickly determined the images were
taken in ueensland, and notified the
local police, initiating an investigation.
Within two days of the images being
assessed in the UK, a 47-year-old man
in Australia was charged with numerous
child exploitation offences and remanded
in custody.
In the second February case, an
anonymous report was assessed by an
IWF analyst and this time the material
was criminal. It linked to a second site
and a chat area with recent posts. These
contained UK contact details, appearing
to belong to the website owner who had
been conversing on the site. From the
nature of the ‘chat’, it appeared that
children were in danger.
The website was traced to Germany
on a free hosting space, and the German
hotline (Jugendschutz) was alerted, along
with CEOP because of the UK link.
CEOP traced the details to Kent, and
commenced investigations with local
police.
Seven days after the initial anonymous
report, 37-year-old Darren Leggett was
arrested. He was subsequently sentenced
to an indeterminate seven-year sentence
after pleading guilty to more than
30 counts of child sexual abuse over a
six-year period on children as young
as six.
Whether Inspector French ever
envisaged a day when large proportions
of the internet industry fiercely
supported an online crime-fighting
effort, hand in hand with the law, we’ll
never know. But that was the effect of his
original letter to ISPA.
And the right recipe seems to have
been found. It is one strong measure of
self-regulation with a complementary
helping of policing. Over 16 years this
has proven itself to be the fast paced
and nimble antidote to quick moving,
criminal, internet images.
POLICING UK | 95