Analysis > Reported Suspicion and Hotline Determination
Reported Suspicion
Suspicion cited in reports
When a report is filed, the reporter’s suspicion, whether stated or implied, is recorded in the Hotline database. Upon completion of the content assessment by the analyst, their expert opinion is recorded in the database as the “Hotline Determination”.
In 2007, the suspicion given or implied by reporters in 2,044 reports (79% of all reports submitted) was child pornography. Of these 2,044 reports, the Hotline analysts determined that 718, or 35% were indeed child pornography.
Suspicion cited in reports.
While the Hotline accepts reports of other illegal content, the top reason for the submission by the public of reports remains child pornography. However, not only child pornography disturbs users.
The Hotline continues to receive reports in relation to adult pornographic material. A considerable proportion relate to extreme adult content, where the Hotline Analysts often understand the reporters' concerns. However, unless the material is illegal under the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act, 1998 the legal situation is too unclear for action to be taken. To date, this material has been located outside the country and the Hotline is not in a position to take further action. Therefore this type of material is assessed as “not illegal”.
Hotline Determinations
In 2007 there was no child pornography content found to be hosted in the Republic of Ireland as a result of any report received by the Hotline. This maintains the clean record enjoyed by Ireland since the Hotline was established over eight years ago. This fact is corroborated by the 29 other member hotlines of the INHOPE network in operation around the world during 2007.
As can be seen from the graph below which shows both 2006 and 2007, in every month the number of confirmed reports of child pornography is a relatively small percentage of overall reporting. However, averaged over 2007, 28% of reports received were assessed as probably illegal child pornography, whereas the average for 2006 was much lower at 15.8% of all reports (these figures include duplicate reports). This rather large jump could be explained by the fact that in spite of this rise, overall reporting numbers fell for 2007, suggesting that people are becoming more aware of what actually constitutes illegal content and are not reporting so many instances which turn out to be “not illegal”.
Comparison of Suspected to Determined Child Pornography Reports.
It is worth mentioning the number of reports where the Hotline could not find the content to which the reporter was referring. Out of the 2,590 reports received in the period, 439 were classified as "not found". This would include situations where insufficient detail was provided by the reporter, or incorrect details were provided in the report such as an incorrect URL, or the content was already removed by the ISP, or the target of the report was inaccessible at the time of assessment due to a DNS look-up error or a Web server being unavailable. In 2006 this figure was slightly lower with 397 reports being classified in this category. This could be result of a variety of situations, including: (1) the ISP has already taken it down but allows a “404 error” rather then displaying a notice or (2) the criminals themselves have moved the content to another location to avoid detection.
157 reports, or 6%, were outside the remit of the Hotline, such as complaints about telecommunications services or queries about services offered by ISPs. By comparison, 145 reports or 5% were outside the remit of the Hotline in 2006. The Hotline generally tries to redirect the reporter to the appropriate service where known, however it is under no obligation to do so.
