Who We Are

The ISPAI Hotline.ie Service (the Hotline) was launched in November 1999 to provide an anonymous reporting service to members of the public who accidentally uncover illegal content on the Internet, particularly child pornography or activities relating to the sexual exploitation of children. The Hotline is supported and funded by the Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland whose members are determined to take measures to counter the use of their Internet facilities for such illegal purposes.

The www.hotline.ie service receives part-funding from the European Commission's Safer Internet Plus Programme. Opinions expressed by the ISPAI or the Hotline Service do not necessarily represent those of the European Community. Neither the European Community nor the Commission can be held responsible for any use that might be made of the information presented on this site.

To provide a fast response to illegal material that is hosted outside the Irish jurisdiction, the Hotline is a member of INHOPE, the international organisation of Internet Hotlines. Please click here to see all the INHOPE members. The INHOPE organisation applies rigorous standards to which its members must adhere. These are provided in the INHOPE Code of Practice to which the Hotline has signed up. While Hotline.ie can accept reports other than Child Pornography, not all INHOPE hotlines are permitted to do so. This may result in some cases where the Hotline can not forward reports of illegal content that is located outside of this jurisdiction.

INHOPE membership is growing steadily but unfortunately not all countries have an Internet hotline service. In cases where potentially illegal material is identified by the Hotline as located in such countries, it will forward the report to a specific contact point in An Garda Síochána for transmission and action through international law enforcement channels.

The establishment of the Hotline.ie service within an industry self-regulatory framework was one of the key recommendations of the Working Group on the Illegal and Harmful Use of the Internet. This Group was formed in February 1997 at the request of the Taoiseacht by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. It's findings and recommendations were published in mid-1998.

The ISPAI is keen that the Hotline.ie Service should be known as widely as possible by Internet users resident in Ireland. We encourage Irish based organisations to publicise our service. The ISPAI threfore grants permission to others to include the Hotline logo, with a link to the hotline.ie website, on any Internet safety pages or similar references they may include in their website. To assist this, the Hotline logo is available for download here. The ISPAI retains copyright of the Hotline.ie logo and reserves the right to refuse or revoke permission for its use by other persons or entities, where the Association believes the logo is being used in an context inappropriate to the promotion of a safer Internet environment or is used to link to content other than the hotline.ie website itself.