Aisha Counts aishacounts is a reporting fellow at Protocol, based out of Los Angeles. She is a graduate of the University of Southern California, where she studied business and philosophy. She can be reached at acounts protocol. Online child sex abuse material has grown exponentially during the pandemic, and tech's best defenses are no match against it, according to a new report on the threat facing countries around the world.
The report, published last month, was developed by the WeProtect Global Alliance, an NGO that represents nearly governments as well as dozens of companies including giants like Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft in their efforts to stop the spread of child sexual exploitation. The report, which also includes a survey of 32 member-companies, found that not only is the sheer volume of child sexual abuse material, or CSAM, increasing, but it's growing more complex and capitalizing on tech's blind spots.
That's while troubling trends like online grooming and livestreaming child sexual abuse for pay have grown. At the same time, companies and law enforcement officials are grappling with a rapid increase in "self-generated" content from kids, who may be sending images of themselves consensually to peers only to have those images circulated without their consent later on.
The report finds that while tech companies have come a long way toward addressing this problem over the last decade, in many cases their safeguards are failing to keep pace with the evolving threat. This sustained growth is outstripping our global capacity to respond," the report reads.
Children spent more time online than ever and offenders had reduced opportunities to commit offline abuses, which increased online demand for imagery.
Increases in reporting don't necessarily equate to an increase in volume, the report's authors caution, but they point to other recent trends that have also exacerbated the problem. WeProtect's report included research that analyzed conversations in offender forums on the dark web and found that offenders use these forums to exchange best practices.
More than two-thirds of the discussions were about technical tools for messaging, exchanging funds or storing content in the cloud.
The report also emphasizes the challenges in policing this content on a global scale. The internet makes it easy for offenders to exploit vulnerabilities in whichever country has the weakest technical and regulatory defenses, because it's just as easy to access a site hosted in the US as it is in Europe, Asia or anywhere else in the world.
In developing countries, the dramatic uptick in online adoption has outpaced those countries' ability to protect against these kinds of abuses, Drennan said. This is further complicated by the inherently global nature of CSAM. It's that kind of international dimension," said Drennan. To truly collect evidence or prosecute offenders that are overseas requires careful coordination with international entities like Interpol and Europol, or bilateral collaboration with other countries.
The report also points to an increase in "self-generated" sexual material over the last year. That includes imagery and videos that young people capture themselves, either because they were coerced, or because they voluntarily shared it with someone their own age, who then shared it more broadly without their consent.
And that's a real challenge for policymakers to try [to] address. In addition to outlining the scope of the problem, the report also takes stock of what the tech industry has done so far to address it. And yet, far fewer companies actually contribute new material to existing hash databases. Sean Litton, the executive director of the Technology Coalition, said tech companies have a responsibility to share "hard lessons learned, to share technology, to share best practices, to share insights.
That needs to change, the report argues. The report also suggests tech companies use techniques such as deterrence messaging, age-estimation tools and digital literacy training. These interventions can include showing users a message when they attempt to make searches for CSAM or using AI to scan a user's face and check their age. Some regions, including Australia , are also pursuing an approach known as "safety by design," creating toolkits that tech companies can use to ensure their platforms are considering safety from their inception.
The authors of the report advocate for more regulation to protect against online harms to children, as well as new approaches to encryption that would protect users' privacy without making CSAM virtually invisible.
But many of the techniques for detecting CSAM come with serious privacy concerns and have raised objections from some of WeProtect's own member-companies. Privacy experts, like the ACLU's Daniel Kahn Gillmor, worry that features like Apple's proposed child safety features — which WeProtect publicly supports, but which the company has put on hold — can open gateways to infringements on privacy and security.
Another proposed feature would scan iMessages on devices of children under 13 and alert their parents if they send or receive sexually explicit imagery. Another concern is miscategorization. In a world where tech platforms use metadata to detect adults who may be grooming young people, what would that mean for, say, a teacher who's regularly in contact with students, Gillmor asked.
There's also the risk of mass surveillance in the name of protection, he argued. Gillmor is careful to frame the conversation as surveillance versus security rather than privacy versus child safety, because he doesn't see the latter as mutually exclusive. Tech companies have a long way to go in making sure prevention and detection methods are up to speed and that their platforms provide protections without sacrificing security.
But there's no neat and easy solution to such a complicated, multidimensional threat. Drennan likens it to counterterrorism: "You put the big concrete blocks in front of the stadium — you make it hard," he said.
While some perpetrators may slip through, "you immediately lose all of those lower-threat actors, and you can focus law enforcement resources on the really dangerous and high-priority threats. To give you the best possible experience, this site uses cookies. If you continue browsing. You can review our privacy policy to find out more about the cookies we use. Subscribe for free. Source Code. Next Up.
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Send a digital invoice. Set up ACH payments with invoices. Send checkout link. Manually entered payments For taking payments over the phone, key in card information directly into your Square app or web browser. Key in card info on the Square app. Charge cards with Virtual Terminal. See more ways to process payments.
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Learn more about Reader for contactless and chip. To oversimplify, the main point of using a digital wallet is to pay for things. Cryptocurrency holders typically use a crypto wallet to buy crypto. However, mobile and crypto wallets do have some things in common. Like mobile wallets, you could pay for goods or services using a crypto wallet at places that accept cryptocurrency.
And both wallets are far more secure than carrying around a credit card. However, all the info required for either type of wallet is online and therefore vulnerable to hacking at some level. Cards and accounts in a digital wallet are typically FDIC-insured or have some level of fraud protection through the financial institution, while cryptocurrency is still largely unregulated.
Digital wallets offer consumers a convenient, efficient and secure method for virtual payments, tickets, gift cards and more. While it may not be time to ditch your physical wallet just yet, we will likely continue to see an increase in adoption by U. How We Make Money. Liz Hund. Written by. Liz Hund is a social producer at Bankrate and occasionally writes special features on-site with a social-first angle.
Edited By David Schepp. Edited by. David Schepp. David Schepp is a wealth editor for Bankrate, focusing on deposits and consumer banking content. Reviewed By Robert R. Reviewed by. Robert R. Johnson, Ph. Share this page. The end of Wallet shows that sometimes even great talent, a good idea, and beautiful execution aren't always enough to create the next killer app.
Sometimes circumstances beyond the inventive ability of any one person or company get in the way, a scenario that has proven especially true in the case of credit cards. So many are trying -- and Square with particular skill -- to invent a better way to pay that uses your phone instead of a piece of plastic. But so far, for both customers and merchants, the old way is just good enough that too few are willing to take the risk of jumping into something new.
So far, for both customers and merchants, the old way is just good enough that too few are willing to take the risk of jumping into something new. For those of us who used and liked Square Wallet, the lack of interest was always a little surprising. Using your stored credit card information, the app let you check in at a shop and simply pay by giving the cashier your name -- no need to pull out your wallet or even your phone.
The cashier knew who you were because your picture, which you also stored in the app, would pop up on their register running Square's merchant app. You could even set up Square Wallet to automatically "check you in" when you neared your favorite stores. The experience was a revelation.
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