Internet bigwigs led by Facebook, Google and Twitter launched an oline campaign aimed at ridding the internet of images of child abuse that have been doing rounds. To achieve this, they teamed up with a web-based charity organization, Internet web Foundation (IWF) which had the backing of the government of United Kingdom.
For the first time, the UK government allowed access to its database to a third party. The charity group was given an access to the Child Abuse Image Database (CAID) that had all the abusive images that were being circulated or posted over the internet. These had been gathered by the then Home office department.
The images were to be released to the internet in a bid to control their circulation. For each image, a string of hash numbers was to be formed that would make them traceable without the numbers being seen. That would control further spread of these images. When contacted, the home office department said that the collection comprised of images already in circulation and others not yet posted online. These had been collected from the media having already being posted or from private hard drives awaiting upload.
The hash numbers were to flush these images from further spread in the major social media platforms. This was to start with Facebook, Google and twitter as they awaited others to join. The numbers would also gain access to other images on personal hard drives yet posted and clean them out preventing their spread.
This was being made in an effort to restore dignity to human life and uphold children rights. It was also measure to control the spread of such behavior. It was noted that the more these images were allowed to circulate, the more they become a motivation to other child abusers and potentially others to continue with the vice.
To show the sensitivity of the matter, even these agencies were not allowed access to the images themselves by the United Kingdom government. The government was to come up with the hush numbers for tracking the images on these platforms. If successful, the move would then be spread to other relatively smaller internet platforms as the motive was to rid the internet of these bothersome images.
The only challenge was the so-called dark-web or deep-web. These have made their content not fall under the traditional search engines as Google and Bing’s indexes. They are invisible on these searches and therefore their content isn’t regulated. This means that if they were to post abusive child images, it would be hard to trace them and their circulation would be uncontrolled. This would beat the very meaning of this project. The project initiators were however optimistic that, if these cases were to happen, they would be minimal.
