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The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

NCMEC

The mission of The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) is to help find missing children, reduce child sexual exploitation, and prevent child victimization.

Lobbying Activity

Response to Child sexual abuse online: detection, removal and reporting

12 Sept 2022

The EU Regulation is the most significant global proposal introduced to date to combat online sexual exploitation. Currently the global community relies on voluntary initiatives undertaken by electronic service providers (ESPs) to detect, report, and remove child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) on their platforms. There are no consistent or mandatory regulations for online companies to address the victimization of children through online sexual exploitation. The EU Regulation addresses what many around the world have recognized in recent years, namely that voluntary initiatives are insufficient to address the rampant online sexual abuse of children. In The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC)’s experience, any online service that enables members of the public to share content – no matter the size, the structure, or the intended focus of the service – can be misused by offenders to abuse children and to perpetrate this abuse by distributing their sexually abusive images online. While many technology companies have acknowledged a corporate and societal responsibility to actively detect and remove child sexual exploitation content, too many companies are not proactive in fighting the insidious problem of online child sexual abuse or engage in half-measures, decline to participate in voluntary initiatives, and too often put child protection secondary to organizational financial concerns. The lack of consistent legal mandates for ESPs to combat online child sexual abuse is a significant gap that is preventing the world from effectively combatting this devastating crime. By proposing more proactive and mandated measures to combat the proliferation of CSAM, the Regulation takes steps to fill this gap. NCMEC supports the Regulation’s goals to promote systematic, legally mandated procedures to prevent and disrupt the dissemination of online CSAM in the EU and to address the rights of child victims and the recovery services that would benefit these children and their families after recovery. NCMEC also recognizes that implementation of the Regulation will have far-reaching global impacts beyond the borders of the EU. NCMEC applauds the goals and scope of the proposed Regulation. However, as with any new and sweeping proposed regulatory framework, there are elements of the current Regulation that in NCMEC’s opinion require revision in order to effectuate the best possible outcome, avoid unintended consequences to child victims, and ensure that successful processes to combat online child sexual exploitation already established among tech companies, international law enforcement, and child protection organizations, including NCMEC, are not disrupted. These areas of concern and recommendations are set forth in detail in the attached feedback.
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Meeting with Ylva Johansson (Commissioner) and

1 Jun 2022 · The participant’s and the EU efforts to prevent and tackle child sexual abuse.

Response to Child sexual abuse online: detection, removal and reporting

29 Dec 2020

Attached please find feedback on the initiative Fighting child sexual abuse: detection, removal and reporting of illegal content online" submitted on behalf of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).
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