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Britain’s eavesdropping agency will join forces with organised crime experts to apply the same methods used to track down terrorists to tackle online child abuse, Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday.
Speaking at a summit in London attended by more than 50 countries and 26 technology companies, Cameron said Britain would also introduce a new law making it illegal for an adult to send a sexual communication to a child.
“We have created a new joint team between the National Crime Agency (NCA) and GCHQ, using all the techniques and expertise we use to track down terrorists ... to track down paedophiles as well,” Cameron told the summit.
Britain’s new specialist unit will tackle the worst cases of child sexual exploitation online, focusing on the so-called “dark web” of encrypted networks that lets people anonymously share images of child abuse.
Cameron said 41 countries had agreed to set up databases of illegal images and a new global fund would be set up to help prevent child exploitation online.
Britain will contribute £50mn to it.
Firms including Facebook, Microsoft and Google will use the digital footprints on child abuse images to prevent them being shared on their networks, he said, while Microsoft, Google and Mozilla have also agreed to work together to look at blocking access to child abuse material via their web browsers.
“The online exploitation of children is happening on an almost industrial scale. There are networks spanning the world,” he said. “This is a global crime so it needs global action. We need to throw the net so wide that there is nowhere for these paedophiles to hide.”
The prime minister said: “Every time someone chooses to view an online image or a video of a child being abused, they are choosing to participate in a horrific crime. Every single view represents that victim being abused again. They may as well be in the room with them.
“I want to build a better future for our children.”
The prime minister highlighted the work of GCHQ and the NCA in identifying an individual in the UK who shared child abuse material around the world using chat services and websites in Asia and eastern Europe.
GCHQ and the NCA were able to identify the man who was using software designed to maintain anonymity online. He was later sentenced to three years in prison for making and distributing indecent images of children.
Peter Wanless, the chief executive of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), said: “Child-abuse imagery, increasingly violent and degrading in nature, is an international problem requiring international solutions. The internet does not recognise borders and neither should our efforts to achieve justice for children affected. Governments, technology companies, law enforcement and other organisations all have a part to play in tackling this sick trade.”
Cameron also highlighted global commitments from more than 30 countries to improve the tracking of paedophiles. A new £50mn child protection fund will also be established to help victims.
