Internet companies have the technology to stop most of the digital child abuse images circulating among paedophiles but are failing to do so, a senior police official has said.

The National Crime Agency said on Thursday that internet service providers must do more, as it disclosed significant increases in sexual attacks on and interest in children.

Will Kerr, head of vulnerabilities at the NCA, said millions of known abuse images could be stopped and they were the ones circulating most commonly: “We know that there are thousands of children being unnecessarily exploited and abused in the United Kingdom while actually industry has the technological ability now to stop that at source. That’s what we want to happen.”

Kerr said: “There is the technological means now to prescreen images before they are put on to hosting platforms so why do we have, when we can technologically stop it, indecent images of children being on any of these platforms at all that are then shared hundreds if not thousands of times, that children are revictimised again and again…”



The NCA said there were 10m indecent images of children known to law enforcement.

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Abuse images are shared via the dark web but also through the regular internet. The NCA says there has been a 700% increase in allegations of abuse images since 2013.

Each image online has a digital hashtag and the technology exists to enable hosting platforms and internet service providers to catch those before they are uploaded.

The NCA said taking indecent images off the web would leave it free to use its overstretched resources to tackle higher-level offending, where suspects are physically attacking children.

Law enforcement is furious with tech companies on several fronts. Police believe they have evidence of them profiting while the platforms they make money from help terrorists and serious and organised criminals cause harm.

Most specifically, they are criticising tech companies’ claims that they cannot be blamed for what goes on their platforms.

Kerr said: “If you are a hosting platform and there is indecent imagery being uploaded and then shared on your platform … we would say there should be more responsibilities and more vicarious liability on those hosting platforms to stop that happening in the first place. That seems like an entirely reasonable position when you understand the scale and volume of the threat.”

He added: “There is a range of different legislative options. We leave that to government to decide what they want to impose.”

New technologies throw up new dangers. Gangs in the Far East, in countries such as the Philippines, are carrying out attacks on children to order; paedophiles watching on the web are able to choose the victim’s ethnicity and dress.

Thousands of British men are viewing live-streamed abuse, with the UK now the third biggest consumer of live-streaming abuse.

Kerr said changes in technology had increased the problem. These range from apps like Periscope to encrypted video conferring used by organised criminals to make money from people who want to view child abuse. “The scale of choices for people who have a sexual interest in children is frightening,” he added.