Published: Tue 2 Mar 2021
Written by: The Guardian
Predators are often early adopters of technology,” says Sarah Smith, chief technology officer at the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a UK child abuse hotline. “It’s an arms race, we have to be constantly horizon-scanning.”
Smith and her team, based in an unassuming office in Cambridge, are a key link in a chain of experts around the world developing and finessing technology that tracks down paedophiles and removes child abuse images found online.
IWF analysts sit in front of screens for long hours each day, trawling through material flagged to their hotline by the public and police as potentially containing child abuse.
Read more at The Guardian.
The girl sent a photo to a boy in her class before the image and her phone number were added to all-male online chat groups - she later started disappearing before being abused by "unknown men".
