Misplaced Pages

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78-563: The Internet Watch Foundation ( IWF ) is a global registered charity based in Cambridge , England. It states that its remit is "to minimise the availability of online sexual abuse content, specifically child sexual abuse images and videos hosted anywhere in the world and non-photographic child sexual abuse images hosted in the UK." Content inciting racial hatred was removed from the IWF's remit after

156-712: A " notice and take down " service by alerting them to any potentially illegal content within their remit on their systems and simultaneously invites the police to investigate the publisher. The IWF has connections with the Virtual Global Taskforce , the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre . Susie Hargreaves was appointed CEO in September 2011. Andrew Puddephatt

234-592: A 92-year-old poppy seller who allegedly committed suicide due to overwhelming requests for donations from charities, sparked widespread public fear and media attention across England and Wales. This scandal prompted a review of the self-regulation of fundraising practices in England and Wales, as well as Scotland, subsequently leading to the introduction of self-regulatory reforms in both jurisdictions. In 2021, The Guardian reported that Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden "had instructed officials to ensure candidates for

312-424: A Home Office spokesperson said that ISPs were being pressured to sign up to the IWF's blacklist in order to block child pornography websites and said that there was no alternative to using the IWF's blacklist. Zen Internet previously refused to use the IWF's blacklist citing "concerns over its effectiveness". However it quietly joined the foundation in September 2009 while still maintaining its concerns. As of 2009,

390-674: A charity in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Some charities are not subject to regulation by or registration with the Charity Commission, because they are already regulated by another body, and are known as exempt charities . Most exempt charities are listed in Schedule 3 to the Charities Act 2011 , but some charities are made exempt by other acts. However exempt charities must still comply with charity law and may approach

468-640: A dark web forum, with 90% being realistic enough to be prosecutable under UK laws. The IWF is advocating for legal changes to criminalize the creation and distribution of AI-generated CSAM. Facilitated by the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI), discussions were held between certain ISPs, the Metropolitan Police, the Home Office , and a body called the "Safety Net Foundation" (formed by

546-478: A fundraising preference service. This service allows the public to control how charities contact them. The commission carries out general monitoring of charities as part of its regular casework. In serious cases of abuse and regulatory concern, the commission has powers outlined in the Charities Acts to conduct statutory investigations. Before taking the decision to open a statutory inquiry , it will take

624-484: A list of URLs for individual webpages with child sexual abuse content called the IWF URL List (previously referred to as the child abuse image content list or CAIC list). A whole website will only be included on the list if that whole domain is dedicated to the distribution of child sexual abuse images. It says "every URL on the list depicts indecent images of children, advertisements for or links to such content, on

702-610: A matter of weeks. New challenges have arisen from the introduction of the Licensing Act 2003 (with the potential for 24-hour drinking) and the Gambling Act 2005 (with significant deregulation of gaming). With new legislation expected that covers the possession of "extreme obscenity" the work of the Clubs and Vice Unit continues apace. In 2014, the unit was merged into the Metropolitan Police's Human Trafficking Command and

780-479: A new part of its terms of reference. The unit reached its lowest ebb in the early 1970s, when chronic allegations of corruption came to a head with the detailed exposure in 1972 of systematic payments by the pornographer James Humphreys led to 17 policemen, including DCI George Fenwick, head of the Obscene Publications Squad, his direct superior DCS Bill Moody , Commander Wallace Virgo,

858-476: A notice to the hosting company to remove the imagery (if hosted in the UK) or works with a network of hotlines and police around the world who follow their own country's process for removing the imagery. More than 99% of all the child sexual abuse images found by IWF are hosted outside of the UK. In this instance, whilst work to remove the imagery takes place, IWF places the web address on its URL List for partners to block

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936-503: A police website was set up for the purpose in April 2011. The IWF used to also take reports of criminally obscene adult content hosted in the UK. This was removed from the IWF's remit in 2017. As part of its function, the IWF says that it will "supply partners with an accurate and current URL list to enable blocking of child sexual abuse content". It has "an excellent and responsive national Hotline reporting service" for receiving reports from

1014-415: A publicly available website. The list typically contains 500 – 800 URLs at any one time and is updated twice a day to ensure all entries are still live". Since IWF began proactively searching for child sexual abuse imagery, and since the introduction of crawler technology, the list typically contains between 5,000 and 12,000 URLs every day with a daily 'churn' of content being added to the list and removed from

1092-652: A result, the case was abandoned and the defendant was cleared of all charges. On 5 December 2008, the IWF system started blacklisting a Misplaced Pages article covering the Scorpions ' 1976 album Virgin Killer , and an image of its original LP cover art which appeared on that article. Users of some major ISPs, including BT , Vodafone , Virgin Media / Tesco.net , Be / O2 , EasyNet/UK Online / Sky Broadband , PlusNet , Demon, and TalkTalk (Opal Telecom), were unable to access

1170-548: A significant increase in AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online. During a 30-day review of a dark web forum, the IWF found 3,512 AI-created CSAM images and videos, a 17% rise from a similar review in fall 2023. The IWF observed that most cases involved manipulating existing CSAM or adult pornography by superimposing a child's face. A few instances involved entirely AI-made videos, which were still of basic quality. Their study found 12,000 new AI-generated images on

1248-520: Is a matter for "our police partners", and IWF has no plans to extend the type of content included on the list. A staff of 13 trained analysts are responsible for this work, and the IWF's 2018 Annual Report says that on average, 376 new URLs were added to the list daily. Between 2004 and 2006, BT Group introduced its Cleanfeed technology which was then used by 80% of internet service providers. BT spokesman Jon Carter described Cleanfeed's function as "to block access to illegal Web sites that are listed by

1326-444: Is not exhaustive and we are looking to you to monitor your newsgroups identifying and taking necessary action against those others found to contain such material. As you will be aware the publication of obscene articles is an offence. This list is only the starting point and we hope, with the co-operation and assistance of the industry and your trade organisations, to be moving quickly towards the eradication of this type of newsgroup from

1404-480: Is reported to be due to the single blacklisted article causing all Misplaced Pages traffic from ISPs using the system to be routed through a transparent proxy server. Misplaced Pages distinguishes unlogged-in users from each other by their IP address, so interpreted all unlogged-in users from a particular ISP as a single user editing massively from the proxy address, which triggered Misplaced Pages's anti-abuse mechanism, blocking them. On 14 January 2009, some UK users reported that all of

1482-844: The Central Register of Charities . Its counterparts in Scotland and Northern Ireland are the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator and the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland . Orlando Fraser succeeded interim chair, Ian Karet, who succeeded Baroness Stowell of Beeston . The commission has four sites in London , Taunton , Liverpool and Newport . Its website lists the latest annual reports submitted by charities in England and Wales. During

1560-521: The Charitable Trusts Act 1853 . There had been several attempts at reforming charities before that which had been opposed by various interest groups including the church, the courts, the companies, and the universities. The power of the commission was strengthened by amendments to the act in 1855, 1860, and 1862. The Charity Commission was substantially reconstituted by the Charities Act 1960 ( 8 & 9 Eliz. 2 . c. 58), which replaced

1638-698: The Communication Workers Union . The IWF's website offers a web-based government-endorsed method for reporting suspect online content and remains the only such operation in the United Kingdom. It acts as a Relevant Authority in accordance with the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) concerning Section 46 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (meaning that its analysts will not be prosecuted for looking at illegal content in

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1716-739: The Dawe Charitable Trust ). This resulted in the "R3 Safety Net Agreement", where "R3" referred to the triple approach of rating, reporting, and responsibility. In September 1996, this agreement was made between the ISPA, LINX , and the Safety Net Foundation, which was subsequently renamed the Internet Watch Foundation. The agreement set requirements for associated ISPs regarding identifiability and traceability of Internet users; ISPs had to cooperate with

1794-838: The European Union by comprising one-third of the UK Safer Internet Centre . The IWF is governed by a board of trustees which consists of an independent chair, six non-industry representatives, three industry representatives plus one co-opted independent representative with a specialism in human rights. The Board monitors and reviews IWF's remit, strategy, policy and budget to enable the IWF to achieve its objectives. The IWF operate from offices in Vision Park, near Cambridge . It has been criticized as an ineffective quango that does not deserve its charity status, for producing excessive numbers of false positives, for

1872-547: The Internet . Particular attention is focused on the most extreme and/or exploitative material. The Taskable Unit assists BOCUs with offences occurring on the street such as kerb crawling , street prostitution and the advertising of brothels in public phone boxes , known as "carding". It also provides resources to other units within Clubs and Vice. The Vice Unit provides a centre of investigative excellence to monitor London's off-street prostitution and in so doing protect

1950-482: The National Coal Board refused to pay for the work. It also proposed asking parents 'exactly how close were you to your child?'; those found not to have been close to their children would not be compensated. The Charities Act 2006 established its current structure and name. As of 31 March 2015 the commission had 288 employees and 19 agency staff in post. The Olive Cooke case, involving

2028-830: The Voluntary and Community Unit of the Department for Social Development , part of the Northern Ireland Executive . The Charities Act 2006 requires the Commission to be operationally independent of ministerial influence or control. Members of the commission, including the chair, are appointed by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport . The Finance Act 2010 extended charitable tax benefits (for example Gift Aid ) to charities within EU member states, Norway and Iceland, rather than those just inside

2106-563: The 85 billion pages of the Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) had been blocked, although the IWF's policy is to block only individual offending web pages and not whole domains. According to IWF chief executive Peter Robbins, this was due to a "technical hitch". Because the Internet Archive's website contained URLs on the IWF's blacklist, requests sent there from Demon Internet carried a particular header, which clashed with

2184-533: The Charitable Trusts Acts (1853-1891). This introduced new duties to determine charitable status, and to maintain a public register of charities. The commission was criticised after the Aberfan disaster in 1966 for its intransigence and decisions on what it allowed money from the disaster fund to be spent on. It sanctioned the use of £150,000 to remove remaining spoil tips from the area after

2262-615: The Charity Commission Metropolitan Police Clubs %26 Vice Unit Established in 1932 as the 'C' Division Clubs and Vice Unit, the unit later became better known as the "Clubs Office" and was based at West End Central Police Station . Historically, the unit dealt primarily with prostitution, later introducing nightclubs, gaming and casinos . During the 1960s and with improved technology, its focus had moved on to criminal activity, including drugs, criminal control of clubs and brothels and

2340-404: The Charity Commission chair role were "tested" on how they would use the watchdog's powers to rebalance charities by "refocusing" them on their founding missions", in response to what he described as "a worrying trend in some charities that appear to have been hijacked by a vocal minority seeking to burnish their woke credentials." Orlando Fraser was appointed as chair of the Charity Commission by

2418-585: The Charity Commission for advice. Some charities are 'excepted' from charity registration. This means they do not have to register or submit annual returns, but are in all other respects subject to regulation by the Charity Commission. A charity is excepted if its income is £100,000 or less and it is in one of the following groups: churches and chapels belonging to certain Christian denominations (until 2031); charities that provide premises for some types of schools; Scout and Guide groups; charitable service funds of

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2496-524: The European Union and the online industry. This includes Internet service providers, mobile operators and manufacturers, content service providers, telecommunications and filtering companies, search providers and the financial sector as well as blue-chip and other organisations who support the IWF for corporate social responsibility reasons. Through their "Hotline" reporting system, the organisation helps ISPs to combat abuse of their services through

2574-633: The IWF to identify providers of illegal content and facilitate easier traceability. Demon Internet was a driving force behind the IWF's creation, and one of its employees, Clive Feather, became the IWF's first chair of the Funding Board and solicitor Mark Stephens the First Chair of the IWF's Policy Board. The Policy Board developed codes, guidance, operational oversight and a hotline for reporting content. The Funding Board, made up of industry representatives and Chair of Policy Board, provided

2652-559: The IWF, potentially causing unintended interference as discussed below. In 2018 the IWF URL List contained 100,682 unique URLs. R v Walker , sometimes called the "Girls (Scream) Aloud Obscenity Trial", was the first prosecution for written material under Section 2(1) of the Obscene Publications Act in nearly two decades. It involved the prosecution of Darryn Walker for posting a story entitled "Girls (Scream) Aloud" on an internet erotic story site in 2008. The story

2730-490: The Internet ... We are very anxious that all service providers should be taking positive action now, whether or not they are members of a trade association. We trust that with your co-operation and self regulation it will not be necessary for us to move to an enforcement policy. The list was arranged so that the first section consisted of unambiguously titled paedophile newsgroups, then continued with other kinds of groups which

2808-482: The Internet Archive's internal mechanism to convert web links when serving archived versions of web pages. The actual blocked URL which had caused the incident never became publicly known. Charity Commission for England and Wales The Charity Commission for England and Wales is a non-ministerial department of His Majesty's Government that regulates registered charities in England and Wales and maintains

2886-500: The Internet Watch Foundation", and described it as essentially a server hosting a filter that checked requested URLs for Web sites on the IWF list, and returning an error message of "Web site not found" for positive matches. In 2006, Home Office minister Alan Campbell pledged that all ISPs would block access to child abuse websites by the end of 2007. By the middle of 2006, the government reported that 90% of domestic broadband connections were either currently blocked or had plans to be by

2964-410: The Internet unless service providers were seen to wholeheartedly embrace "responsible self-regulation". The ISP Demon Internet regarded the police request as "unacceptable censorship"; however, its attitude annoyed ISPA chairman Shez Hamill, who said: We are being portrayed as a bunch of porn merchants. This is an image we need to change. Many of our members have already acted to take away the worst of

3042-477: The Internet. But Demon have taken every opportunity to stand alone in this regard. They do not like the concept of our organisation. Following this, a tabloid-style exposé of Demon Internet appeared in the Observer newspaper, which alleged that Clive Feather (a director of Demon) "provides paedophiles with access to thousands of photographs of children being sexually abused". During the summer and autumn of 1996

3120-675: The Secretary of State on a three-year term commencing from 25 April 2022. This appointment was not without controversy, including the refusal of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sports Committee to endorse the appointment. Prior to restructuring in 2006, the equivalent of the Chair was the Chief Charity Commissioner. From 2006 the role of chief charity commissioner was replaced with those of chair and chief executive of

3198-523: The UK National Criminal Intelligence Service which in turn forwards it to Interpol or the relevant foreign police authority. It now works with the Serious Organised Crime Agency instead. The IWF does not, however, pass on notifications of other types of potentially illegal content hosted outside the UK. Since March 2010, the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) has required all procurement specifications for

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3276-523: The UK police made it known that they were planning to raid an ISP with the aim of launching a test case regarding the publication of obscene material over the Internet. The direct result of the campaign of threats and pressure was the establishment of the Internet Watch Foundation (initially known as the Safety Net Foundation) in September 1996. A report by IWF published in July 2024, revealed

3354-513: The UK, or uploaded by someone in the UK, but regarding blocking sites "with those categories, our remit will only go so far as to refer sites hosted in the UK to the appropriate authorities." The IWF states that it works in partnership with UK Government departments such as the Home Office and the DCMS to influence initiatives and programmes developed to combat online abuse. They are funded by

3432-694: The UK. In 2016, following the Olive Cooke scandal, the British fundraising regulatory landscape underwent a review, leading to the establishment of the Fundraising Regulator. The Fundraising Regulator is an independent oversight body without statutory authority. It serves as the regulatory authority for charitable fundraising, responsible for defining and promoting fundraising standards. Additionally, it investigates cases, addresses public complaints related to fundraising practices, and operates

3510-472: The administration must select an official name and decide on a structure for the charity that will impact aspect such as who runs the charity and how does the charity is run. Subsequently, the creation of a governing document that explain how the charity is run is required. Finally, an electronic application must be completed if the charity’s income is at £5,000 per year, or it is a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO). There are different rules for creating

3588-409: The approach set out in its Regulatory and Risk framework. The commission, therefore, began around 2007 to carry out an intermediate form of action described as regulatory compliance investigations. In 2010 it opened over 140 of these cases, compared to just three full statutory investigations. However, the legality of these actions was debatable as they lacked a statutory basis . A high-profile example

3666-440: The armed forces; and students' unions . Registration of a charity in England and Wales does not endow that status elsewhere, thus further registration has to be made before operating in Scotland or Northern Ireland. Charities in Scotland are regulated by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator . In Northern Ireland the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland was established in 2009 to replace earlier regulation by

3744-487: The blacklist was said to contain about 450 URLs. A 2009 study by researcher Richard Clayton at the University of Cambridge found that about a quarter of them were specific pages on otherwise legitimate free file hosting services , among them RapidShare , Megaupload , SendSpace and Zshare. Listing these pages on the confidential blacklist of pages would cause all accesses to the sites hosting them to be referred to

3822-563: The content carried by some of the newsgroups made available by them was illegal, that they considered the ISPs involved to be publishers of that material, and that they were therefore breaking the law. In August 1996, Chief Inspector Stephen French, of the Metropolitan Police Clubs & Vice Unit , sent an open letter to the ISPA, requesting that they ban access to a list of 132 newsgroups, many of which were deemed to contain pornographic images or explicit text. This list

3900-430: The content has not been found to be illegal by a court of law, IWF Director of Communications Sarah Robertson claimed, on 8 December 2008, that the IWF is opposed to the censorship of legal content. In the case of the IWF's blacklisting of cover art hosted on Misplaced Pages just a few days prior, she claimed that "The IWF found the image to be illegal", despite the body not having any legal jurisdiction to do so. In March 2009

3978-454: The content. Aside from the IWF URL List, the IWF has developed many services which may be taken by internet companies to help stop the spread of child sexual abuse imagery online. The IWF operates informal partnerships with the police, government, public, and internet companies across the world. Originally formed to police suspected child pornography online, the IWF's remit was later expanded to cover criminally obscene material, though this

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4056-477: The course of their duties). Reports can be submitted anonymously. According to the IWF MOU "If potentially illegal content is hosted in the UK the IWF will work with the relevant service provider and British police agency to have the content 'taken down' and assist as necessary to have the offender(s) responsible for distributing the offending content detected." Potentially illegal content includes: However, almost

4134-550: The end of the year. The target for 100% coverage was set for the end of 2007, however in the middle of 2008 it stood at 95%. In February 2009, the Government said that it is looking at ways to cover the final 5%. In an interview in March 2009, a Home Office spokesperson mistakenly thought that the IWF deleted illegal content, and didn't look at the content they rate. Although the IWF's blacklist causes content to be censored even if

4212-421: The filtered content. Although controversial, the album and image are still available, both through Internet shopping sites and from physical shops. The image had been reported to the IWF by a reader, and the IWF determined that it could be seen as potentially illegal. The IWF estimated the block affected 95% of British residential users. The IWF has since rescinded the block, issuing the following statement: [...]

4290-405: The financial year 2022–2023, the Commission regulated £88   billion of charity income and £85   billion of charity spend. To establish a charity, an organisation must first find at least three trustees whom will be responsible for the general control and management of the administration of the charity. The organisation needs to have a charitable purpose that helps the public. Afterwards,

4368-836: The focus on clubs and vice was reduced. The Clubs and Vice Unit was split into five sections: The Clubs Unit is split into three teams: the Proactive Licensing team, Proactive Crime team and the Gaming team. All three units' primary responsibility is to generate intelligence-led operations against organised criminals who use licensed premises to supply illegal drugs and gaming establishments to commit gaming fraud. They also support Basic Command Units (BOCU) in tackling licensed premises associated with serious violence and disorder. The Obscene Publications Unit targets people who manufacture and distribute obscene material through shops , mail order , complex distribution networks and

4446-530: The government and the DTI, which played a "facilitating role in its creation", according to a DTI spokesman. At the time, Patricia Hewitt , then Minister for E-Commerce , said: "The Internet Watch Foundation plays a vital role in combating criminal material on the Net." To counter accusations that the IWF was biased in favour of the ISPs, a new independent chairman was appointed, Roger Darlington, former head of research at

4524-541: The head of the Serious Crime Squad, in overall charge of the unit, and Commander Kenneth Drury, head of the Flying Squad . As the ensuing corruption investigations widened, the Obscene Publications Squad was replaced in its entirety with a new group of officers drawn from the uniformed branch and more than 20 detectives were dismissed or required to resign. When the cases ultimately came to trial in 1977,

4602-614: The image in question is potentially in breach of the Protection of Children Act 1978. However, the IWF Board has today (9 December 2008) considered these findings and the contextual issues involved in this specific case and, in light of the length of time the image has existed and its wide availability, the decision has been taken to remove this webpage from our list. Additionally, many UK Internet users were unable to edit Misplaced Pages pages unless registered and logged in with Misplaced Pages. This

4680-454: The list as appropriate. Offending UK URLs are not listed as they are taken down very quickly; URLs elsewhere are listed only until they are removed. The list is applied by the ISPs of 95% of commercial Internet customers in the UK. According to the IWF website, blocking applies only to potentially criminal URLs related to child sexual abuse content on publicly available websites; the distribution of images through other channels such as peer-to-peer

4758-402: The most vulnerable adult and child prostitution victims and seek to investigate and prosecute those who exploit them. Emphasis is placed on rescuing trafficked and coerced victims. The unit also provides support and guidance to borough officers who come into contact with these offenders and victims. The Intelligence Unit provides field intelligence for the proactive teams. The unit includes

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4836-537: The newspaper The Guardian , explained in his book Bound and Gagged that Ian Taylor , the Conservative Science and Industry Minister at the time, had underlined an explicit threat to ISPs that if they did not stop carrying the newsgroups in question, the police would act against any company that provided their users with "pornographic or violent material". Taylor went on to make it clear that there would be calls for legislation to regulate all aspects of

4914-811: The obscene publications industry. The base in Vine Street was requisitioned to become the Aliens Registration Office in August 1939, so the unit was temporarily closed. It reopened in October in a secret meeting in a public house in Leicester Square for officers to take instructions and collect their expenses. In 1941, the Unit moved onto the third floor of the new West End Central Police Station . This location, near Soho Division,

4992-475: The police wanted to restrict access to, including alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.cheerleaders and alt.binaries.pictures.erotic.centerfolds . Although this action had taken place without any prior debate in Parliament or elsewhere, the police, who appeared to be doing their best to create and not simply to enforce the law, were not acting entirely on their own initiative. Alan Travis , Home Affairs editor of

5070-479: The presiding judge Mr Justice Mars-Jones , summarised those involved as having engaged in "corruption on a scale which beggars description". As a result of this corruption, officers were changed to predominantly uniformed officers who were thought to be less corrupt than their CID counterparts. There was also a rotation system where officers were posted to the unit for a maximum of 12 months and then returned to their police stations. In practice, some returned within

5148-453: The provision of Internet-related services to central government agencies and public bodies to require the Internet service provider (ISP) to block access to sites [ sic ] on the IWF list. The policy of blocking access to child sexual abuse content via government sites is described as "lead[ing] by example". ISPs would generally be expected to pay IWF for membership or access to the blocked URL list. The IWF compiles and maintains

5226-425: The public. In addition to receiving referrals from the public, its agents also proactively search the open web and deep web to identify child sexual abuse images and videos. It can then ask service providers to take down the websites containing the images or to block them if they fall outside UK jurisdiction . If found on the open web, it traces where the content is hosted (geographically) and either directly issues

5304-579: The secrecy of its proceedings, and for poor technical implementations of its policies that have degraded the response time of the whole UK Internet. IWF claims to have succeeded in reducing the percentage of the worldwide child sexual abuse images that are hosted in the UK from 18% in 1996 to 0.04% in 2018. During 1996, the Metropolitan Police told the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) that

5382-411: The wherewithal for the IWF's day-to-day activities as set down and required by the Policy Board. After three years of operation, the IWF was reviewed for the DTI and the Home Office by consultants KPMG and Denton Hall . Their report was delivered in October 1999 and resulted in a number of changes being made to the role and structure of the organisation, and it was relaunched in early 2000, endorsed by

5460-612: The whole of the IWF site is concerned with suspected images of child sexual abuse with little mention of other criminally obscene material, also within their remit. Images judged by the IWF using UK law to be images of child sexual abuse are blocked. The Government said that the IWF would also be handling images of adult " extreme pornography ", which became illegal for people in the UK to possess on 26 January 2009. This has not been part of IWF's remit since 2017. The IWF includes "extreme pornography" as an example under "criminally obscene content", meaning that they will report material hosted in

5538-418: The work and direction of the unit over the years. When the Street Offences Act came into force in 1959 the majority of prostitutes left the street, practically overnight, for fear of imprisonment and the fine for living off immoral earnings which increased. The Obscene Publications Act 1964 brought extra responsibilities when the unit was given the task of enforcing the act. As a result, obscenity became

5616-437: Was a fictional written account describing the kidnap, rape and murder of pop group Girls Aloud . It was reported to the IWF who passed the information on to Scotland Yard 's Obscene Publications Unit . During the trial, the prosecution claimed that the story could be "easily accessed" by young fans of Girls Aloud. However, the defence demonstrated that it could only be located by those specifically searching for such material. As

5694-581: Was appointed Chair in January 2018. The Senior Leadership Team at IWF comprises: The IWF passes notifications of suspected child sexual abuse images and videos through the INHOPE network of hotlines across the world, whenever the content is traced to an INHOPE country. Where there is no INHOPE hotline, IWF works with the relevant police body in that country. Previously, the IWF passed on notifications of suspected child pornography hosted on non-UK servers to

5772-650: Was crucial as Soho has been the most famous red light district in the United Kingdom since the mid-19th century. During the Second World War , the vice scene in the west end of London thrived due mainly to the number of overseas soldiers based in England, many of whom visited Soho. The proprietors of unlicensed clubs in Soho were breaching licensing laws but these also became a haven for prostitution and organised crime . The unit's officers performed covert operations to tackle these problems. Legislation has affected

5850-462: Was later reversed by the Commission. Between 2022 and 2023, the commission removed 4,146 charities from the register and concluded 5,726 regulatory action cases (includes 68 statutory inquiries). Prior to the 1840s, a body of commissioners had been established by the Statute of Charitable Uses 1601 ( 43 Eliz. 1 . c. 4), but these proved ineffective. The Charity Commission was first established by

5928-687: Was removed from the IWF's remit in 2017. The IWF takes a strong stance against the term 'child pornography' and on its website cites "we use the term child sexual abuse to reflect the gravity of the images and videos we deal with. Child pornography, child porn and kiddie porn are not acceptable descriptions. A child cannot consent to their own abuse". The IWF is an incorporated charity, limited by guarantee, and largely funded by voluntary contributions from UK communications service providers, including ISPs, mobile phone operators , Internet trade associations , search engines , hardware manufacturers, and software providers . It also currently receives funding from

6006-413: Was the commission's report into The Atlantic Bridge , after which that body was dissolved in September 2011. The commission announced in October 2011, in the context of cost-cutting and a re-focussing of its activities, that it would no longer carry out regulatory compliance investigations. In 2012, the commission refused to grant charitable status to Plymouth Brethren Christian Church , stating that it

6084-491: Was unclear whether the body's aims were compatible with the requirement for charities to have a public benefit. The commission stated that this was called into doubt as a result of the "exclusivity" of the body. The decision was discussed at a session of the Public Accounts Committee , during which MP Charlie Elphicke accused the commission of being "committed to the suppression of religion". The decision

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