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    Non-photographic child sexual abuse

    IWF’s remit includes the identification and removal of UK-hosted non-photographic (Prohibited Images) child sexual abuse images and videos.

    In 2022, we took action on 285 reports of non-photographic child sexual abuse imagery (a 22% increase from 2021). However, after our assessment, none of these were confirmed as UK-hosted content.

    At the end of 2022, 324 unique URLs of non-photographic child sexual abuse imagery were listed on the NPI URL List. 18 IWF Members subscribe to this service.

    What can we do about this?

    The UK is one of the few countries in the world where non-photographic child sexual abuse imagery is criminal.

    If we find this content hosted in the UK, we issue a notice to the hosting provider who removes it. This hasn’t happened in the UK since 2016. However, this type of content does exist online and if UK-hosted, would fail UK laws.

    Technology companies want the flexibility of being able to block and filter it to prevent their customers from stumbling across it.

    Therefore, we created the NPI List, which contains, drawings, computer-generated imagery (CGI) and other non-photographic representations of child sexual abuse which is hosted outside of the UK.

    The URLs provided in the NPI List are those deemed at the time of assessment to breach UK legislation, specifically Sections 62 to 69 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. Several international technology companies use this list to protect their services for their customers.