UK internet watchdog reports ‘horrifying’ increase in child abuse imagery

A charity tasked with removing child abuse imagery from the internet has warned of a “horrifying” increase in the amount of material it has had to take down over the past year.

The Internet Watch Foundation, which acts as a de facto watchdog for online child abuse in the UK, said it removed more than 100,000 webpages showing the sexual abuse and sexual torture of children in 2018, an increase of one-third over the year before.

The IWF usually publishes its annual findings in April but brought forward the release this year because it felt the increase was too significant to withhold.

The charity’s chief executive, Susan Hargreaves, said: “These 105,047 webpages each contained up to thousands of images and videos showing the sexual abuse of children. It amounted to millions of horrific images. Virtually all [more than 99 per cent] were hosted outside the UK.

“It is shocking and deeply upsetting that these images should have been created in the first place. We have set ourselves an ambitious programme of work for 2019. By getting better at finding and combating this material, we offer real hope to the victims whose images are shared online.”

The IWF said four in 10 of the webpages it flagged for removal in 2018 displayed the sexual abuse of children aged 10 and younger, with infants and babies featuring more than 1,300 times.