A child safety agency has said that “nothing stopping” photographs of child sexual assault are proliferating on WhatsApp in Eastbourne and globally.
Helping to identify and remove child abuse content from the internet, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has accused Meta, the owner of WhatsApp, of lacking the systems in place to stop the dissemination of such material, including the type of content shared to former BBC presenter Huw Edwards.
Edwards said in July that he shared over WhatsApp, the end-to— encrypted communications network, indecent photographs of youngsters. Including the service provider itself, nobody else outside of a chat may view or access encrypted messages.
In attempts to stop the dissemination of child abuse material, some activists are advocating improvements to encryption that would allow law enforcement authorities access to these kinds of conversations.
Others counter that there is now no practical technology that could generate a so-called backdoor into encryption without finally breaking encryption and so affecting user privacy and safety; secure messaging platforms are therefore essential to protect vulnerable individuals, including younger users.
Chief technical officer at the IWF, Dan Sexton, charged Meta with “choosing not to” guarantee such obscene images cannot proliferate following the Edwards case.
“I would like to know how Meta plans to stop this from happening once more. What is keeping those photographs from being shared once more on that service today, tomorrow, and the next day?” he said.
“Although we know about it, they know about it, and the police know about it, right now there is nothing blocking those precise photographs and videos of those youngsters posted on that site. There are no systems in place. That is the change I would want seen.
“Effective, tried-upon techniques abound for spotting photographs and films of child sexual assault and stopping them from first distribution.
“But in WhatsApp, these safeguards are basically switched off, with no alternative measures in place,” he said.
“We have to remember that children are at the centre of this issue; everyone, even large internet corporations and platforms, owes it to those victims to ensure their images cannot proliferate even more. Meta is currently opting not to.”
Other child safety groups, the National Crime Agency (NCA) and safeguarding minister Jess Phillips have supported the IWF.
The Labour MP declared: “Child sexual assault is a nasty crime that causes victims long-lasting misery.
“UK legislation is absolutely clear: it is illegal to create, possess, distribute photos of child sexual abuse; so, we keep funding law enforcement departments to help in offender identification and child protection.
“Technology exists to ensure victims are afforded privacy by limiting the repeated sharing and viewing of photographs and videos of their abuse, therefore detecting and preventing the terrible mistreatment of thousands of youngsters.
“Social media companies must act and implement robust detection measures to prevent their platforms being safe places for criminals.”
Acting head of intelligence at the NCA Rick Jones claimed it was “fundamentally not acceptable” for technology firms to “consciously step away from preventing the distribution of indecent images of children” on their platforms.
“Technology is available to identify these images, but most companies are choosing to design their platforms in a way that does not allow it to be used either at all, or to its full efficacy,” he remarked.
“Platforms putting the onus on victims, especially children, to identify and report abuse they are subjected to is not morally defensible,” he said.
A WhatsApp spokesman responded, “End-to- end encryption is one of the most crucial technologies to keep everyone safe online, especially young people.
“We have created strong safety measures to prevent, identify and fight abuse while preserving online security as we know people, especially journalists, activists, and politicians, do not want us reading their personal correspondence.
“This includes the ability to report straight to WhatsApp so we can ban any user who shares this horrible stuff and report them to NCMEC [National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children]. Safety precautions we have created are absent from other chat apps.”
If you or anyone you know have been affected by the people highlighted in this article, then please report those individuals to the Police on 101 (999 if an emergency) or visit their online resources for further details of the options for reporting a crime. You can also make a report at Crimestoppers should you wish to be completely anonymous. There is help available on our support links page.