Microsoft and the Italian government believe the rollout of CETS will lead to the entire European continent implementing the program, which the Italian police’s special communications unit has said to speed up Internet child pornography cases by 80 percent.
“In substance, we want to oppose paedophile rings with an international network of cyber police,” Domenico Vulpiani, director of the police postal and communications squad, said.
The program, which was eventually developed in conjunction with the Toronto police department and Microsoft Canada, links police forces all around the world and provides a database of images that are uncovered during investigations, enabling separate investigation units to come together in their crackdown on child pornography groups and individuals.
CETS keeps tabs on child porn traffickers, credit card purchases, Internet chatroom messages and arrest records, and when bundled with other types of agency software, it creates a searchable database that can trace similarities between cases and analyze and classify pictures deemed child pornography.
“The biggest obstacles to tracking down child pornographers have always been technology and the international nature of the crimes,” ASACP Executive Director Joan Irvine told XBIZ. “Hopefully, Microsoft’s Child Exploitation Tracking System will help address both problems. With the proper tools, law enforcement can go beyond just arresting end users — people who download or view CP. Access to better data and resources means they can go after the international producers and distributors too.”
A spokesperson for the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant said that the U.K. and Spain were the countries the company was eyeing to use CETS as Microsoft ramps up its rollout.
Microsoft has spent more than $7 million developing the system and is giving it to governments for free.