IWF Annual Report 2019

Internet Watch Foundation
UK hosting of child
sexual abuse imagery
The UK hosts a small volume of online child sexual abuse content.
When we were founded in 1996, the UK hosted 18% of the global
total; in 2019 this figure was just 0.1%.
20%
15%
10%
5%
18%
0.1%
In 2019, 158 URLs displaying
child sexual abuse imagery
were hosted in the UK, an
increase of 266% from 41 URLs
in 2018.
This increase is a result of
more sophisticated crawler
technology being used by the
IWF and our international
partners, enabling us to find
and remove more criminal
imagery from the open web.
1996
2003
2019
What can we do about this?
We use three pieces of technology to trace
the hosting location, then issue a takedown
notice to the company which is hosting the
material. Law enforcement are consulted
during this process and evidence is
retained for investigation.
• 46 takedown notices, relating to the
158 URLs, were sent to the UK
hosting companies.
We might send one notice for several
webpages, and in some cases content may
already have been removed by the time we
receive authorisation from the police.
UK child sexual abuse content
removal in minutes
3 (7%)
Time really matters. The longer an image stays live,
the more opportunity there is for offenders to view and
share it, and more damage is caused to victims.
In partnership with the online industry, we work
quickly to push for the fast removal of child sexual
abuse content hosted in the UK. The “takedown”
time-clock ticks from the moment we issue a takedown
notice to the hosting company, to the time the content
is removed.
16 (35%)
27 (59%)
60 minutes or less
61 minutes to 120
More than 120 minutes
Fastest removal time: 4 mins
68