Analysis > Forwarding Reports
Forwarding Reports
In 2006 the incidence of unique reports (duplicates excluded) assessed by the Hotline and determined as being probably child pornography under the Irish Child Trafficking and Pornography Act (1998) has increased again compared to 2005. Of the total number of reports received by the Hotline in 2006, 15.7% of these were determined as being probably illegal under Irish law.
Unique illegal reports 2006
In more than half of reports confirmed as probably illegal child pornography, the severity of content was assessed to be very high. Most of these were incidents were the content of the open preview pages of pay-sites that are operated by organised criminals. Other cases where severity is high is where photo or video sharing services have been misused by paedophile rings. Where the content is less severe, it is not unusual for the material to be hosted in countries where the age of consent is lower than in Ireland. Hence while the content may be deemed illegal under Irish law it is not so under the local law and these sites will continue to operate. In such cases the Hotline will forward the report through the appropriate channel to the apparent country of origin. It is up to the receiving country to decide whether or not it also breaks their law.
All reports where the content was confirmed as probably illegal child pornography were traced to locations outside of Ireland and forwarded for action to either other INHOPE hotline members or to An Garda Síochána to be routed through police channels. The fact that no reports received by the Hotline were traced to Ireland shows that ISPAI’s Codes of Practice must be working and this country is not hosting illegal child pornography Internet content.
Location to which reports determined as referring to illegal content were forwarded.
Most of the reports determined as probably illegal under Irish Law were traced as apparently located in either Russia (146 reports) or the USA (134 reports). As there is no INHOPE member hotline currently in Russia, these reports were passed on to An Garda Síochána who in turn liaise with international police organisations such as Interpol and Europol to forward information about illegal content to the appropriate jurisdiction.
Countries where CP content appeared to be hosted in 2006.
The USA was the next highest recipient of reports from the Hotline. The reports are forwarded to NCMEC CyberTipline, the US INHOPE member Hotline, who in turn work with the US law enforcement to tackle illegal material found on Internet services.
The high incidence of report forwarding to the USA does not imply that all of this Child Pornographic content is being compiled in the USA nor that all the child victims in this content are to be found in the USA. The USA has numerous organisations providing hosting and Internet facilities at international level which gives a very open internet environment. Many innovative Web services are hosted on these servers, often based on economies of scale and advertising models supported by the US market, which offer "free" limited services to users around the world. Despite strict terms and conditions of service, unfortunately, these facilities do get exploited by criminals from around the globe. To change the way in which these facilities do busines in attempt supress illegal content, would be to punish the overwhelming majority of legitimate users for the misuse perpetrated by a very few. However, the US CyberTipline, ISPs and law enforcement authorities do act. Often material reported to the Hotline after business hours on one evening will be found to have an "already removed" notice displayed when the Hotline investigates the following morning.
