Operational Background: National Hotline - Hotline.ie Annual Report 2010

National Hotline.ie

Hotline.ie enables the public to play a crucial role

The main focus of the Hotline is to fight the hosting and distribution of child abuse images on the Internet by providing a facility which enables members of the public to anonymously report material on the Internet which they suspect to be illegal. Action may then be taken to have it removed. The main focus is to fight the hosting and distribution of child pornography on the Internet. The Hotline also deals with reports of racist and xenophobic content which incite hatred or threaten violence against groups or individuals contrary to Irish law. While reports of other potentially illegal content (such as financial scams) are accepted, only those which clearly have an Irish context fall within the remit and are processed.

Hotline.ie relies totally on the public to bring suspected illegal content, especially child pornography, to its attention. Read about circumstances where you should make a report by clicking on the box "Suspicious Content" to the right.

OBJECTIVE

The primary aim of Hotline.ie is to keep child pornography off ISPAI members’ Internet facilities. However, as in the case of the first confirmed assessment and location of such content hosted in Ireland, the Hotline’s role is to verify whether or not the material is probably illegal and if so, to notify the ISP and An Garda Síochána so that action can be taken swiftly.

However, as illegal use of the Internet, particularly for the distribution of child sexual abuse material, is an international problem the Hotline fully participates in global cooperation to stem the flow of such material on the Internet and regards ths as a vital secondary role.

The Hotline's vital links to law enforcement

by filtering Logos The Hotline.ie provides important assistance to An Garda Síochána by filtering reports to determine what is probably illegal and is also located in the Republic or has an Irish dimension. This allows the gardaí deploy their specialist resources to investigate reports of concern to them without having to waste their time dealing with reports that do not contain illegal content or relate to material held in other jurisdictions. Once the Hotline.ie has passed its content assessment and the technical information it has gathered on the Internet to An Garda Síochána the Hotline"s role is completed.

The Hotline’s excellent liaison with and support from An Garda Síochána was well underlined when in October Hotline.ie had its first absolutely confirmed report of illegal child abuse content hosted in Ireland. After the Hotline Manager contacted the Gardaí they immediately began an investigation and the site’s content was removed from public access within five hours of the Hotline receiving the report.

The Hotline.ie very much appreciates the support it has received from An Garda Síochána during the period. They have also promoted the Hotline.ie on their website and in the Garda pages of the national telephone directories.

Hotline standards

The public can have confidence in both the effectiveness of the Hotline.ie and the high standards to which it complies. This is because the Hotline.ie is overseen by the Office for Internet Safety (OIS).

Office for Internet Safety Logo The OIS, a section of the Department of Justice and Law Reform, oversees the Hotline’s procedures and monitors the effectiveness of self-regulation of the Internet service provider industry, on behalf of Government. (See hotline.ie for more information on the Hotline’s history).

Hotline's 10th Anniversary

The Hotline.ie service, being established by the Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland (ISPAI) in November 1999 celebrated 10 years of operation in November 2009.

Suspicious Content

Click here to find out more about what might be reported.

Very occasionally members of the public while browsing the Internet may happen directly upon material that appears to be child pornography. Thankfully, this is a rare occurrence but nevertheless Hotline.ie provides a means to quickly report this and have action initiated.

Far more commonly, Internet users encounter material they suspect may lead to illegal content in the following ways:

They find a suspicious description of a link on a web page
A link is found that has a suspicious name, e.g. http://www.anyolddomain.net/kiddysexpics/hardcore.htm
(NOTE that this URL is fictitious and used only for example here)
They receive a spam advertising what appears to be child pornography or financial scam
In the file list returned from a peer-to-peer search they see file names or file descriptions that appear to suggest that illegal content would be obtained if these were downloaded
They are looking through a forum on a given subject and suddenly find an “off-topic” posting which appears to advertise illegal material that may be obtained by following some link or set of instructions.

Quite rightly, users do not wish to follow such links (and nor should they) as to do so could bring images or videos of child pornography down on to their computer.

However, the users are often concerned about what may be present and wish to report what they have found. Hotline.ie offers the user the ability to report such material without concern that they may be wasting Garda time. Hotline.ie will investigate every report made within reason. It encourages the public to make such reports; it doesn’t matter if the material turns out not to be illegal.

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