Google has announced plans for a global block on searches for child abuse images.
The search giant says it will utilise technology to tag the illegal images and videos enabling all duplicates to be removed across the Internet.
The move is set to start in the UK, before reaching other English-speaking countries over the next six months.
Summit
The announcement came before an online pornography summit at Downing Street where Microsoft, which overseas Bing and Yahoo search engines, is expected to announce similar plans.
David Cameron described the decision as a “really significant step forward.”
The Prime Minister added: “We learnt from cases like the murder of Tia Sharp and April Jones that people will often start accessing extreme material via a simple search in one of the mainstream search engines.”
Google and Microsoft initially claimed the very idea of blocking child pornography couldn’t and shouldn’t be done.
“We've listened. We've fine-tuned Google Search to prevent links to child sexual abuse material from appearing in our results,” explains Google’s chairman Eric Schmidt.
Protecting children
He added: “While society will never wholly eliminate such depravity, we should do everything in our power to protect children from harm.”
Google and Microsoft will also tackle paedophiles by working alongside the National Crime Agency and the Internet Watch Foundation to target “peer to peer” file sharing networks.
“If the search engines are unable to deliver on their commitment to prevent child abuse material being returned from search terms used by paedophiles, I will bring forward legislation that will ensure it happens,” said Mr Cameron.
Abuse ruins lives
Google spokesman Peter Barron said: “The sexual abuse of children ruins young lives. It’s why we proactively remove these awful images from our services--and report offenders to the authorities.
“But the government’s right that our industry can do more. So we’ve developed new technology to detect and remove videos of abuse, we are showing warnings against search terms related to child sexual abuse, and we are fine tuning our search engine to prevent this material appearing in our results.
“We hope this will make a difference in the fight against this terrible crime.”
But experts have questioned whether the move will make any difference as child abuse images will still be widely available for viewing on the internet.
Former Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) chief executive Jim Gamble said: “I don't think this will make any difference with regard to protecting children from paedophiles.
“They don't go on to Google to search for images. They go on to the dark corners of the Internet on peer-to-peer websites.”
Source:
The Telegraph: Google vows to block child pornography
Telegraph: Google block will not stop child porn, experts warn