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    Reports analysis

    In 2022

    We assessed a webpage every one-and-a-half minutes.

    Every two minutes, that webpage showed a child being sexually abused.

    People report to us at iwf.org.uk, or through one of the 50 Reporting Portals around the world, in multiple languages. All reports are assessed at our headquarters in the UK. We also actively search the internet for child sexual abuse imagery. We call this, ‘proactive searching’.

    • 375,230 reports were assessed by IWF (4% increase from 2021):
      • 375,153 were reports of webpages, and
      • 77 were reports of newsgroups
    • 255,571 URLs (webpages) were confirmed as containing child sexual abuse imagery having links to the imagery or advertising it (1% increase from 2021). Each URL could contain one, tens, hundreds or even thousands of individual child sexual abuse images or videos.
    • Additionally, 17 newsgroup reports were confirmed as containing child sexual abuse imagery.
    • No reports were confirmed as UK-hosted non-photographic child sexual abuse imagery (prohibited images).

    We use the term ‘actioned’ to indicate a report which was found to contain child sexual abuse material, which we therefore took a number of active steps to remove from the internet.

    You can read more about UK-hosted and globally-hosted child sexual abuse material.

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    External vs proactive – reports assessed and actioned

    This chart compares proactively sourced reports (where our analysts search for content) and those reports which came to us via external sources.

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    External report sources – assessed and actioned.

    This chart shows a breakdown of the external sources which report into us and report numbers from each source. The five sources are: Public, Police, Member, Other and Hotline.

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    Chart showing the percentage of reports which were actionable (contained child sexual abuse material) from each external source.

    Chart showing the percentage of reports which were actionable (contained child sexual abuse material) from each external source. The five sources are: Public, Police, Member, Other and Hotline.

    Public report source accuracy

    126,334 reports were assessed by our Hotline which came from the public. 26% (29% in 2021) of these reports correctly identified child sexual abuse content. This figure includes newsgroups and duplicate reports (where the same criminal URL has been reported multiple times).

    Note: Each year, a number of these are adverts or links to child sexual abuse material.

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    Severity of child sexual abuse over past three years

    This chart shows the severity of child sexual abuse according to UK Category A, B and C.