Advertising fuels sexual exploitation of children online, says Sajid Javid
Advertising by well-known brands is fuelling the sexual exploitation of children online, Sajid Javid warns today.
On the eve of a visit today to the US to confront social media firms over their progress on tackling online abuse, the home secretary ordered experts to investigate the problem as part of his efforts to counter the threat of paedophiles to children on the internet.
It follows the discovery by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) that adverts including those from well-known brands, are appearing on illegal child abuse websites, providing them with tens of thousands of pounds in income.
Mr Javid who has commissioned the IWF to investigate the scale of the problem said: "Keeping our children safe is my mission as Home Secretary and it is vital tech companies take their responsibility seriously.
"I have demanded action and will be discussing the progress industry has made during my visit to the US - as well as seeing the latest tools being developed to detect online child grooming. This Government is leading the response against these sickening crimes.”
Mr Javid will chair a new taskforce to bring together representatives from ad agencies, trade bodies and brands to discuss steps to stop criminals having access to such funding. He is also announced extra funding for schemes to tackle live streaming of abuse.
Susie Hargreaves, chief executive of the IWF, said it has been asked to provide data to "explore how legitimate advertisers are being exploited by offenders, intent on sharing horrific imagery of child sexual abuse online".
She added: "Using a variety of sophisticated techniques to avoid detection, offenders are exploiting online advertising networks to monetise their distribution of child sexual abuse material."
Mr Javid will meet tech giants in the US this week after threatening new legislation unless they come up with new measures to prevent child abuse images getting onto their platforms in the first place. He is also hosting a hackathon with Microsoft to develop tools to detect online child grooming.
He disclosed the government was working on new technology to help identify victims of child abuse from matching scenes in multiple photos to establish where they were taken, help police rescue the children and catch the perpetrators.
Algorithms to speed up the analysis of computers to extract child abuse images and identify and categorise them.
Mr Javid’s visit comes weeks after he described his shock at discovering the scale of the danger posed by paedophiles on the internet. The National Crime Agency (NCA) estimates around 80,000 people in the UK present some kind of sexual threat to children online.
Referrals of child abuse images to the NCA have surged by 700% in the last five years, while separate figures suggest police in England and Wales record 25 child sexual offences involving the internet every day on average.
