New app should help child porn addicts
Child abuse offenders adapt to the possibilities, but also to the dangers of detection and professionalize themselves on the net, according to police investigators. Photo EPA, Sascha Steinbach
European Union
A new app in the making should protect people against themselves when they are addicted and cannot resist the pull of child pornography. The app is currently being developed and will be tested in spring.
That is reported by the Dutch daily Reformatorisch Dagblad and Euractive.
Block
According to Online Kindermisbruik, a Dutch expert organisation specialised in online child abuse, the app monitors both the network data, as well as images that appear on the screen of the user in real-time. As long as users do not watch pornographic materials containing minors, the app functions in the background. However, when it detects images of child abuse, it blocks them.
The project, called "Protech", is funded by the European Commission and costs about 2 million euros. It is led by the German University Hospital Charité and set to start in March. It should take two years to develop the tool.
Coming spring, the app will be offered to at least 180 test people, Euractiv writes. It will then be enrolled in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and the UK for eleven months. Participation is voluntary. After that, the application will be evaluated.
Lower demand
Expert organisation Online Kindermisbruik expects that several people want to protect themselves against pornography. General Director, Arda Gerkens, says that people who contact the organisation's helpdesk are often looking for technical interventions that help them stay away from this kind of material. "In addition, the app prevents repeated victimisation of victims of sexual abuse. They suffer under the fact that their images can be looked up online time and time again."
"The demand for images and videos of children being sexually abused is unceasing", says Dan Sexton, the Chief Technology Officer from Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a British child safety organisation. He points out that finding and removing images from the internet is not enough to stop child abuse. Sexton hopes the app will help lower the demand for child pornography.
According to Stefan Bogaerts from Tilburg University in The Netherlands, digital devices can play a role in reducing sexual abuse online. "They can provide certain features and measures that enhance the safety of users, such as security and privacy settings, reporting and blocking options", he says to Euractiv.
Prevention
It is still unclear what will happen if the app detects child pornography. According to an IWF spokesperson, the tool will not report users to the police. Instead, it will focus on prevention by reducing the availability of illegal content.
Currently, there are already several porn blockers. However, they still have some issues detecting the difference between innocent pictures of children and real pornographic materials. For example, a father who takes a picture of his child in a bath can already get into trouble.
Related Articles
