Executive Summary

Significant drop in content assessed as illegal

In 2009, reports received by the Hotline where the content was assessed to be illegal under Irish law fell by 47%. There were 284 such reports in 2009 compared with 2008 when the figure was 536. Given that overall reporting to the Hotline increased slightly in the year, this outcome is to be welcomed as hopefully it indicates that the average Internet user is not encountering content they suspect to be illegal as frequently as occurred in the past.

This encouraging trend is tempered by the fact that criminals are now using more sophisticated methods to market, exchange or collect child sexual abuse images. One method employed is to hack into the websites of legitimate organisations and plant child pornography in obscure directories which can then be picked up by paedophiles who have been given the specific URL.

Lax website security was found to be the underlying cause when, in October 2009 for the first time in the Hotline’s ten year history, our Analysts processed a report received from another INHOPE Hotline and absolutely confirmed illegal child pornography was being hosted in the Republic of Ireland.

Hotline report figures at a glance are presented on the next page of this executive summary. Click "next >>" below to continue.

Hotline reporting figures at a glance

In brief, the statistics relating to reports received by the Hotline in 2009 are:

2117 total number of reports processed by the Hotline.
284 of the above were determined as illegal under Irish law.
9 of the 284 proved to be duplicate reports, resulting in,
275 unique illegal reports. Of these:
9 were other issues (such as racism, threats of violence against individuals and financial scams that had an Irish connection).
267 were assessed as child sexual abuse and were forwarded for action through INHOPE or to An Garda Síochána for national investigation or forwarding via Interpol to other jurisdictions. One of these reports was of child grooming, all others were cases of child pornography.

With the exception of the one report which led to the hacked website in Ireland, in all other cases where content was assessed as illegal by Hotline.ie Analysts, the source location proved to be outside the jurisdiction. There was also one case involving a very large website mirroring service (used to distribute load for high volume websites) that has servers located in Ireland. Although the USA was the actual source of this incident of child abuse images it caused this illegal content to be replicated here. This anomaly has been reflected in the Hotline statistics.

TRENDS

In the period from January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2009 the Hotline processed 2,117 reports. This was an additional 151 reports (an increase of 7.7%) on the previous year’s number of 1,966 and a reversal of the small downward trend of reports which had peaked in 2006 with 2,680 reports.

Despite this reversal, what is really encouraging is that the reports assessed as illegal under Irish law numbered 536 in 2008 compared with 284 in 2009, a very significant drop of 252. Analysis of the figures suggests that the decline reflects that the public simply do not encounter illegal content with the same frequency as in previous years. Similar observations have been reported by other INHOPE hotlines. This could be a turning point reflecting some degree of success due to the sustained worldwide effort to counter child abuse images on the Internet.

Despite the incidents in 2009, we must not lose sight of the fact that Ireland still has a superb record having had so few cases rooted here in over ten years. This is corroborated by the fact that the other INHOPE member hotlines around the world, who collectively receive many thousands of reports per month, did not find any other illegal content traced to a source in Ireland. The one case in ten years proves the effectiveness of the INHOPE network to alert us if illegal content starts to appear in this country.

Our reporting figures suggest that measures being taken by ISPAI members are proving successful in convincing people that attempting to engage in illegal activity from ISPAI Internet facilities is just too high risk.

HOTLINE.IE BACKGROUND

Hotline.ie is a service run by the Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland (ISPAI) to combat illegal content, particularly child pornography, on the Internet. This facility allows the public to submit reports about suspicious content they have encountered online. The objective is to have a rapid response system to remove from public access any illegal content found to be hosted on, or being distributed from, ISPAI members' Internet facilities.

It also serves to notify An Garda Síochána of such occurrences so they may initiate investigations. The Hotline is a crucial element in the combination of initiatives aimed at improving Internet safety coming from Government, An Garda Síochána, industry, educational and child welfare bodies. ISPAI members promote and financially support the Hotline service as part of their actions to help protect their services and customers from exposure to illegal content. The Hotline also receives part-funding from the European Commission.

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

As the Internet today is a vast global entity, national action alone would be largely ineffective against the purveyors of child pornography. To ensure its greater effectiveness in dealing with illegal content originating in other jurisdictions, Hotline.ie maintains its membership of INHOPE (International Association of Internet Hotlines). Through INHOPE, details of illegal content discovered by a hotline in one country can be swiftly forwarded for action to another member country’s hotline.

In 2009 the reach of the INHOPE network was considerably extended with a Hotline in South African and two from Russia joining the organisation. At the end of the year INHOPE comprised of 36 Hotlines in 31 countries worldwide.

CONCLUSION

Illegal content makes up only a minute percentage of all Internet material, nevertheless it is vital that users appreciate the necessity of reporting to keep this undesireable material in check. While unfortunately Ireland's clean record has faltered we must keep this in proportion; a record of one case in ten years is outstanding.

The figures show that reporting rates over the last couple of years are hovering around the 2,000 per annum mark. Yet, in this time, public Internet usage has grown very considerably. Statistically one might expect if there was the same, or a growing amount, of child pornography on the Internet, then more people should be encountering it − but they are not. This of course assumes that on average the populations' readiness to report is roughly constant.

However, in addition, we have seen that of those 2,000 or so incoming reports, far fewer are proving to refer to illegal child sexual abuse content than in previous years. At 266, the number of unique reports confirmed as referring to illegal child abuse images, are at their lowest since 2004 despite massive growth in Interent usage in those past six years. While these figures do not indicate that the overall amount of child sexual abuse material on the Internet has fallen, it does appear that such material is being encountered less often by the average Internet user in Ireland.

However, there is no room for complacency. Public reporting plays an essential part in making the Internet a safer environment for all users, particularly children, not just here in Ireland but around the world.

If you suspect something you encounter on the Internet may be illegal, or appears to point to where child pornography may be located, please do not ignore it. Report it using the forms at www.hotline.ie