Trends
Overview
One excellent trend continues and another takes shape. Firstly, in 2008, Hotline.ie did not receive a single report about illegal child pornography that was found to be hosted or distributed in the Republic of Ireland. Secondly, the year 2008 showed that Internet users are encountering less illegal content than in previous years.
The laudable record regarding illegal child pornography has been maintained since the Hotline’s establishment in 1999. All the cases in 2008 where the content was judged to be illegal under Irish law by our Content Analysts proved to be hosted or distributed outside the jurisdiction. The other 32 INHOPE members in 29 countries have corroborated this fact. Our clean record has also been endorsed by Telefono Arcobaleno, an independent Italian agency in existence for the past 13 years, which has published research compiled from police data on apparent sources of online child pornography.
The year 2008 showed that Internet users are encountering illegal content less than in previous years. Hopefully this is a new and welcome trend. This is a very discernible decline despite the fact that Internet and broadband subscriptions have shot up considerably in 2008. What we are experiencing is more than likely the result of on-going, world-wide efforts by hotlines, police and other relevant authorities to eliminate child pornography networks. We explain this particular trend in detail below.
Comparing Numbers of Reports by Year
In the period from 1st January 2008 to 31st December 2008 the Hotline processed 1,966 reports. This is a drop of 624 reports, a decrease of 24% on the 2,590 processed in 2007 which itself was a 3.4% decline on the 2,680 reports received in 2006. (Since its establishment in November 1999 the Hotline has processed some 14,800 reports of suspected illegal content).
In 2007 the reason for the small decline in reporting was suggested by Hotline.ie as possibly reflecting some change in the prevalence or advertising of openly available illegal content; especially as so many more people were using the Internet. Nevertheless it was stated the variation was small enough to
Comparing Numbers of Reports by Year contd.
suggest it could be a statistical anomaly. However, with this year showing such a large decline there is greater evidence that Internet users are encountering illegal content less than in previous years. Analysis of the trend figures seems to support this.
Average monthly reporting levels since establishment of the Hotline.ie
Average Number of Reports Processed per Month by Quarter Year
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The graph contained in the thumbnail link to the left shows the trend since establishment of the Hotline. This clearly shows that the last 3 quarters of 2008 had low levels not seen since 2003/2004. As seen in the monthly figures for 2008, the level of reporting can vary considerably from month to month and trends can be obscured by peaks or troughs in reporting. To overcome this, the average level of reports processed per month is averaged per quarter year.
At first glance the decline may seem out of line given that figures from ComReg’s Quarterly Key Data Reports” of March 2007 and March 2008 show huge growth in both Internet and broadband subscriptions. Internet subscriptions rose from 1.2 million in 2007 to 1.4 million in 2008, a 13.35% rise. Broadband shot up from 886,200 subscribers in 2007 to1.2 million in 2008, a 26.15% increase.
Looking at these figures it may be expected that reporting should have increased with the number of subscribers. Yet this is not what has happened, a remarkable trend, especially in view of the fact that research has shown that each broadband connection is typically used for longer periods of time and by multiple users who access far greater volumes of data than users on a dial-up connection.
Average monthly reporting levels Contd.
Given that also there are now over 13% more people using the Internet, the only reasonable explanation of such a large decline is that there is less illegal content, especially commercial child pornography, openly out there on the Internet. This is upheld by the fact that an ISP run by Russian organised criminals was closed down in late 2007 and a rogue ISP in the USA which was allowing spamming was similarly removed from the Internet in 2008.
There may be a variety of reasons contributing to the decline in illegal content, chief among them, the Hotline management believe, is the impact of on-going, concerted efforts of hotlines, police and the ISP and financial industries world-wide in dealing with this issue.
There have been major successes over late 2007 and during 2008 which have taken out many commercial child pornography networks. Quite simply, this has resulted in the Internet using public encountering these sites less frequently and this has resulted in fewer reports being made. This decline in commercial child pornography sites has been observed by other INHOPE members and police agencies report similar trends to varying degrees in other countries
Other reasons contributing to the decline could include:
- Natural statistical variation (if reporting has reached a plateau).
- Some new Internet users may not know where to report or what to do when they encounter something they suspect to be illegal.
- Widespread advertising of illegal material has been severely disrupted by improved anti-spam measures so users are not being confronted by these advertisements, and so are not reporting.
- There appears to be growing sophistication of Internet users of what constitutes illegal content and there are relatively fewer reports of material that is not illegal.
- There is a possibility that illegal content has migrated to areas of the Internet such as UseNet, IRC and P2P which are more obscure to the average user than the World Wide Web.
- If the above is the case there is also a possibility that users of these services are more reluctant to report than is the case with web-sites or spam.
Average monthly reporting levels Contd.
Another notable fact is that 2008 was the first year since the establishment of the Hotline where there has been a significant decline in the proportion of reports where the content was assessed as illegal. The Hotline figures show that the percentage of reports made to the hotline and verified as actually containing illegal content only decreased by 5% over the last two years. In 2007, roughly 32% were assessed as illegal whereas in 2008 this dropped slightly to just under 27%.
Comparison of the apparent locations of Child Pornography
Comparison of Locations where CP Appeared in 2007 and 2008
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Most of the CP traced by the Hotline in 2007 and 2008 were found in the same countries. There were a few at low incidences that were seen in 2007 but not in 2008 or visa versa but these are not significant and not shown in the bar chart linked through the thumbnail on the left.
The really significant reduction of 2008 is that of Russia which hosted about the same as the USA in 2007 but has dropped to a level similar to that found in other large countries at the hub of a major a language group. Most countries have shown a drop with the exception is the USA and Canada. These countries have concentrations of automated hosting and domain registration services which are being misused by criminals. It must be emphasised that these numbers reflect fast turnover of short lived websites rather than persistent illegal websites which was a problem in some other countries in the earlier years of this decade.
Comparison of the apparent locations of Child Pornography contd.
Cumulative Reports Forwarded per Year
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Of great significance is the reduction in the total amount of illegal material detected and that could be forwarded to other jurisdictions so it could be taken down. This is very evident from the graph of cumulative reports forwarded per year.
It is also significant that there has been considerable success in keeping illegal sites off the Internet. At the time of compiling the data for this report, the Hotline.ie Content Analysts undertook some research on the websites reported and assessed as illegal in 2007. It was found that 92% of these no longer existed or no longer contained any illegal content.
However, it must also be noted that the level of confirmed illegal content in 2008 remains above the 2006 level. Even if the downward trends are real and not temporary anomalies, there is no room for complacency. The effort to defeat illegal content and use of the Internet must continue unabated.
