50 Hotlines
46 Countries
1 Mission

Facts & numbers

Age of the victims

77% of CSAM assessed in 2020 depicted children under 13 years of age.

Victims are aged between 3 to 13 years.

The figures from 2020 show that the majority of victims are pre-pubescent.

Gender of victims

93% of victims depicted in reports assessed during 2020 were girls and 5% were boys.

93% of victims were girls

Girls depicted in images and videos increased by 2% from 2019. Children of both genders were depicted in 2% of assessed reports.

World Wide Reporting Data

Netherlands - 21%
Austria - 21%
United Kingdom - 12%
Canada - 10%
Colombia - 9%
Germany - 5%
Poland, United States, Ireland; each 3%
Czech Republic, Finland, each; 2%

World Wide Reporting Data

INHOPE has traced CSAM material to more than 60 countries, and of those INHOPE hotlines are present in 36 countries.

Read more on these facts in our Annual Report.

Site Types

The pie chart shows the variety of sites used to store CSAM.

Site Types

In 2020, the data presented 9 different site types with the majority of material being found on the following:

Website 48%
Image host 24%
File host 13%

Reporting Patterns

Number of exchanged content URLs: 1038268
Number of illegal content URLs: 267192

Number of Reports, Assessed Illegal

Exchanged content URLs – This is the number of URLs of individual media files e.g. video, images etc that were exchanged via ICCAM.

Illegal content URLs – This is the number of unique content URLs that were processed via ICCAM and assessed by analysts as being CSAM and thus illegal.

CSAM

CSAM

CSAM stands for Child Sexual Abuse Material.

HP (Hosting Provider)

Hosting Provider

Hosting provider: refers to companies that host internet content

ISP (Internet Service Provider)

Internet Service Provider

ISP stands for Internet Service Provider, which means organisations that provide connectivity to the internet. This also refers to ESP’s (Electronic Service Providers)

ICCAM

ICCAM

INHOPE’s secure software solution to collect, exchange and categorise reports of child sexual abuse material. ICCAM is used by INHOPE hotlines in different jurisdictions (countries) and INTERPOL. The name ICCAM is derived from the phrase ‘I see Child Abuse Material.’

Hotline

What is a hotline?

A hotline enables the public to anonymously report online material they suspect may be illegal. A hotline analyst will investigate the report and if confirmed illegal, they act to have the content removed from the internet as rapidly as possible.

Reports

Reports

A ‘Report’ (when we talk about a report to a hotline) is a URL that has been reported to a hotline by a member of the public or industry that contains potentially illegal images or videos. One report can contain an unlimited number of images and videos. Often a single report can have a thousand CSAM items.

Assessed images & videos

Assessed images & videos

Assessed images & videos: In order to determine the illegality of images and videos on a particular URL, an analyst has to review the content that is visible on the reported URL. Assessed images and videos refers to all the images and videos that have been found on the reported URL.

Content removed

Content removed

Content (CSAM) removed is the time stamp recorded on ICCAM when a hotline confirms that the instance of the image and/or video has been removed from the internet.

ICCAM Reports

ICCAM Reports

Forwarded ICCAM Reports: When a hotline receives a report from the public or industry, an analyst reviews the report to determine whether it is illegal. If deemed to be illegal CSAM, the analyst traces its hosting location and then instantly forwards the URL to the hotline in the hosting country. The forwarding takes place within ICCAM (INHOPE’s secure platform).

Illegal images & videos

Illegal images & videos

‘Illegal images & videos’ refers only to content that has been classified as illegal by an INHOPE member hotline

LEA

LEA stands for Law Enforcement Agency

Notice and Takedown

A Notice and Takedown order is a procedure for asking a Hosting Provider (HP) or search engine to
immediately remove or disable access to illegal, irrelevant or outdated information hosted on their
services.

Good to know

Useful Documents

Annual Report 2020

A review of 2020, where we look at the INHOPE Network of Hotlines, the environment that it operates in and its global impact on CSAM.

For older reports - click here.

Luxembourg Guidelines

The Terminology Guidelines, dubbed the ‘Luxembourg Guidelines’ after their adoption in Luxembourg earlier this year, offer guidance on how to navigate the complex lexicon of terms commonly used relating to sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children. They aim to build consensus on key concepts in order to strengthen data collection and cooperation across agencies, sectors and countries.

Child Dignity Alliance - Technology Working Group Report

The Technology Working Group was charged with examining the role of technology in combatting the proliferation of online child sexual exploitation and abuse imagery.A focus of this report is on the need to dismantle the chief technical, legal and policy silos that are frustrating real collaboration among law enforcement, industry, government and the non-government sector.