Ernie Allen, chief executive of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, welcomed the decision by the industry to join the fight against child pornography, saying that “there is nothing more insidious and inappropriate” than child pornography.
Pledging $1 million to establish a technology coalition under the umbrella of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, ISPs AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, Earthlink and United Online plan to create a database of child pornography images to help authorities better track users dealing in illegal content.
The technology coalition will collect images of child pornography, creating a mathematical signature for each image. Participating ISPs will be able to scan the database, looking for matches with user images.
While each company will determine its own protocol for how to use the database, executives involved in creating the partnership believe that sharing technology will help the industry develop more effective crime-fighting tools.
“When we pool together all our collective know-how and technical tools, we hope to come up with something more comprehensive along the lines of preventative measures,” Microsoft's Tim Cranton said.
While all ISPs are required by law to report child pornography, the coalition was formed, in part, as a response to a speech from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales calling for the industry to do more to stop child pornography, AOL chief counsel John Ryan said.
According to ASACP Executive Director Joan Irvine, a database such as this will be an effective tool in the fight against online child pornography.
"ASACP is glad these companies are ramping up their efforts to combat child pornography," Irvine told XBIZ. "If the proposed database became available for use by ASACP as well, it would improve the capability of our online CP reporting hotline.”
Still unresolved by the formation of the coalition is the issue of ISP record retention. Law enforcement officials have asked ISPs to keep user records on file longer to help track offenders and have suggested that legislation mandating record-keeping may be in order.