App to block child abuse images gets £1.8m EU funding

[Social Media]

The development of a new app designed to reduce online viewing of child sexual abuse material has received £1.8m of funding from the EU.

It will be tested with volunteers who have sought help because they are drawn to illegal images and want to ensure they cannot act on their desire.

Installed on devices such as phones, the app will identify and block harmful images and videos from being displayed.

It's hoped it can help combat "growing demand" for child abuse images.

The Protech project is a collaboration involving organisations from the EU and UK.

The project's app - called Salus - is intended to work in real-time, using artificial intelligence to identify potential child sexual abuse material and stop users from seeing it. It will also use other more conventional techniques to block content.

 

The Internet Watch Foundation, an organisation that works to find, flag and remove child abuse material, will help to train the AI technology developed by the UK company SafeToNet.

Tom Farrell of SafeToNet, who worked for 19 years in law enforcement, told the BBC the app was not intended to be a tool to report users to the police: "People who are voluntarily looking to stop themselves seeing child sexual abuse material quite clearly wouldn't use such a solution if they believe that it was going to report them to law enforcement."

[Chomper Higgot]

Good news, but why is this left to individuals to deal with.

 

Social Media Platforms routinely scan images link them to accounts, files shared over the internet are traceable during sharing, source and destination are knowable.

 

Why aren’t the social media and tech giants raking in vast profits using their technology to identify, block and report child sexual images?

 

If volunteers can set up an app to block these images, how very much more could tech giants achieve?!

 

 

[puchooay]

55 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Good news, but why is this left to individuals to deal with.

 

Social Media Platforms routinely scan images link them to accounts, files shared over the internet are traceable during sharing, source and destination are knowable.

 

Why aren’t the social media and tech giants raking in vast profits using their technology to identify, block and report child sexual images?

 

If volunteers can set up an app to block these images, how very much more could tech giants achieve?!

 

 

The volunteers are not setting up the app.

 

The volunteers will download the app and test it in real time.

 

It's called System Testing. In integral part in software development.

[Chomper Higgot]

1 hour ago, puchooay said:

The volunteers are not setting up the app.

 

The volunteers will download the app and test it in real time.

 

It's called System Testing. In integral part in software development.

Suffice to say, it’s not Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft et al amongst the high profit tech companies.

[puchooay]

6 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Suffice to say, it’s not Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft et al amongst the high profit tech companies.

Quite correct. Why?

 

Becase the app is a blocker at connection level. It covers the device, not platforms. Nothing to do with using products from the companies you quoted.

 

Once fully developed I can see the big phone manufacturers buying the technology and selling their devices with it pre loaded. 

 

Good luck to SafetoNet. A company with little over £1m paid up capital. I hope they make millions out of this..

[Mac Mickmanus]

31 minutes ago, puchooay said:

Quite correct. Why?

 

Becase the app is a blocker at connection level. It covers the device, not platforms. Nothing to do with using products from the companies you quoted.

 

Once fully developed I can see the big phone manufacturers buying the technology and selling their devices with it pre loaded. 

 

Good luck to SafetoNet. A company with little over £1m paid up capital. I hope they make millions out of this..

Businesses don't like to prosecute their customers