The NetClean Report 2016 provides an overview of global trends in child sexual abuse crime.
The report is a unique insight into the experiences and accumulated knowledge of police officers worldwide working on child sexual abuse investigations.
The aim of the survey is to create wider awareness and knowledge about child sexual abuse crime, with the long-term goal of reducing the number of cases of child sexual abuse.
The report is based on an anonymous questionnaire completed by users of Griffeye Analyze DI, an investigative tool for images and video used by law enforcement agencies worldwide. All respondents are police officers working on child sexual exploitation cases.
Griffeye is NetClean’s peer company and Griffeye Analyze DI is provided pro bono to all police forces working on child sexual abuse investigations.
The survey was carried out between 9th June and 13th September 2016. Responses were gathered through an online survey on Griffeye’s user portal.
370 police officers across 26 countries participated in the survey. 61.1 per cent of the respondents come from the USA, with a further 26 percent based in Europe.
Most of the questions in the report were asked without any suggested alternatives, or as multiple choice questions, to avoid affecting the results. This explains why the results for a number of questions add up to more than a hundred per cent.
The NetClean Report 2016 also includes blocking statistics from one Internet Service Provider (ISP). ISPs block websites that are known to contain child sexual abuse material and these lists of blocked URLs are provided by the police.
To create a better and deeper understanding of the results of the study, we also conducted interviews with a number of distinguished experts in this space.
370 respondents from 26 countries:
Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Latvia, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Romania, Switzerland, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, UK, USA.
Geographic distribution of respondents:
|
USA |
61,1 % |
|
United Kingdom |
8,1 % |
|
Canada |
6,5 % |
|
Norway |
4,3 % |
|
Sweden |
2,2 % |
|
All others |
17,8 % |
The following experts have commented on the results of the report:
|
Björn Sellström, Swedish Police, National Operative Department (NOA), Swedish Cyber Crime Centre, the Child Sexual Abuse Group |
|
Christian Berg, CEO and founder of NetClean |
|
Jim Cole, Special Agent and Section Chief, Victim Identification, Homeland Security Investigations, Cyber Crimes Center, Child Exploitation Investigations Unit, USA |
|
INTERPOL, Crimes against Children unit, Vulnerable Communities Team |
|
Johann Hofmann, Head of Griffeye |
|
Jonas Lindström, Director Group Security & Business Insurance, Tele2 |
|
Kevin Lawes, Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent (retired), owner of K&S Teaching and Consulting, USA. |
|
Michael L. Bourke, Ph.D., Chief, Behavioral Analysis Unit, United States Marshals Service |
|
Richard W Brown, National Association to Protect Children, Protect.org and Project Coordinator for Project VIC, USA. |
|
Verónica Donoso, INHOPE Executive Director |
Foreword to The NetClean Report 2016
It is not all darkness
In the foreword to last year’s NetClean report, I wished that the contents had been different – that the report was about a decrease, rather than an increase, in number of child sexual abuse cases. I also hoped that in the NetClean Report 2016, I would be able to talk about police officers seeing a positive development, with more children being saved…
Ten important insights from the Netclean Report 2016
A growing problem – but not all negative
74.6 per cent of the police officers surveyed reported that their work load has become more demanding in the last…
Investigations with terabytes of data and millions of images
The investigations and cases that law enforcement is dealing with continues to increase.
The victims are primarily from Europe and North America
There is a common misconception that the children in child sexual abuse material are primarily from Asia.
File sharing is the most common method of distributing child sexual abuse material
P2P is not only the most common way to share material, it is also where the majority of the material…
Social media is used to share child sexual abuse material
As the use of social media continues to increase in society, the problem of child sexual abuse material being distributed…
500,000 searches for websites showcasing child sexual abuse material every month
To help tackle this, several Internet Service Providers have committed to blocking websites on the open internet that are known…
Child sexual abuse material is found on work computers in both the private and public sector
That work computers are used to handle child sexual abuse material is confirmed by NetClean’s customers.
Major challenges: encryption, anonymisation technologies, live-streaming and ”deleters”
The police officers in the survey highlighted a number of the challenges the face whilst working on child sexual abuse…
Increased awareness of female offenders
Female offenders are rare, but they do exist. Nearly half of the respondents in the survey, 47.5 per cent, said…
Increased focus on identifying and saving children
Almost two-thirds, 65.2 per cent, of police officers in the study reported that they, as part of their daily work…
