Google is targeting 100,000 terms associated with online child sexual abuse. The Internet search giant’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, has announced that a 200-strong team has cleaned up Google Search to target 100,000 terms that can be used to locate child pornography.
The changes will soon apply to more than 150 languages. The company is also showing warnings at the top of its search results for 13,000 queries.
In a groundbreaking move, YouTube engineers have created new technology to identify videos made by paedophiles.
Google has been working with Microsoft to identify child abuse images.
The announcement came the day before a summit in Downing Street at which the British prime minister will announce that British and US law enforcement agencies are to jointly target online child abuse by monitoring those who operate on the hidden internet.
A transatlantic taskforce will identify ways of targeting criminals and paedophiles who use secret encrypted networks to distribute images of abuse.
The new Anglo-American law enforcement initiative extends already close co-operation between the UK and US in monitoring internet communications. The FBI and other US agencies will be asked to co-operate with their UK counterparts, including the new National Crime Agency.
Joanna Shields, the chief executive of London technology investment agency Tech City, who previously worked for Google and Facebook, will lead an industry group of experts exploring ways of targeting illegal activity online.
Ms Shields said: “It’s vital that governments and industry work together to eradicate child abuse content from the internet, and that we mobilise the best and brightest in the technology industry to come up with innovative solutions.”
Awareness of the threat to privacy and knowledge of the “dark web” have increased since news of the US National Security Agency’s activities surfaced. But the dark web is also a favoured tool for those involved in distributing child abuse material, who have an interest in keeping their identities hidden.
The dark web is so called because sites are hosted in such a way as to be inaccessible through the open internet, and cannot be found by standard search engines.
In order to access them, users must first download special software. When they access the sites, the technology used means that they do so with a high degree of anonymity. The location of the server used to host a particular site is also protected by layers of encryption.
The meeting in Britain will be attended by representatives of BSkyB, TalkTalk, BT, Virgin Media, Google, Microsoft, the National Crime Agency, the NSPCC and the Internet Watch Foundation.
Guardian Service