Google to create industry-wide database to banish child pornography

Google is devising ways to get rid of all kind of child porn from the Internet. The search giant is creating a database of pornographic images of children, to be shared with law enforcement agencies, other tech companies and charitable organisations in order to wipe the Internet clean of such images.

Jacquelline Fuller, Director, Google Giving wrote in a blog post that in 2011, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s (NCMEC’s) Cybertipline received 17.3 million images and videos of suspected child abuse. This was four times the reported cases that the Exploited Children’s Division (ECD) saw in 2007. “Behind these images are real, vulnerable kids who are sexually victimized and victimized further through the distribution of their images,” she wrote. “It is critical that we take action as a community—as concerned parents, guardians, teachers and companies—to help combat this problem.”

Google will database and block all child pornography images

Google’s database of child porn images will be shared with groups around the world in order to facilitate exchange of information and spread awareness. This move will be made in collaboration with Google’s already existing “hashing” technology that tags known child sexual abuse images, allowing the company to identify duplicate images and block them out oo. Each of these images gets a unique ID that servers can block.

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Google has announced that it is donating $5 million for the cause of fighting child pornography. Part of the aid will go to global child protection partners like NCMEC and Exploited Children and the Internet Watch Foundation. Google will also be providing additional support to similar organisations in the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and Latin America. The company also announced that it is setting up a $2 million Child Protection Technology Fund to encourage the development of more effective tools that can curb child pornography.

“We’re in the business of making information widely available, but there’s certain ‘information’ that should never be created or found,” wrote Fuller. “We can do a lot to ensure it’s not available online—and that when people try to share this disgusting content they are caught and prosecuted.”