In March 2020 the Five Country Ministerial (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and United States) launched the Voluntary Principles to Counter Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, in consultation with six technology companies, and the WeProtect Global Alliance. Since then, G7 Interior Ministers have added their support, and a total of sixteen companies have endorsed the Principles. The goal of the Principles is "the prevention of child sexual exploitation and abuse."
We commend companies for making commitments to protect children from sexual exploitation and abuse on their platforms. We trust each company is taking action to implement the Principles, commensurate with those commitments. We note though that there remain fifteen industry members of the WeProtect Global Alliance and thirteen members of the Technology Coalition1 - organizations whose stated purpose is to protect children online - that have not endorsed the Principles. Two years on from their launch, with three months until government, industry and civil society meet at the WeProtect Global Alliance's Summit in June - we reiterate our call to those remaining companies, and wider industry, to endorse and transparently implement the Principles.
We all have a duty to do more to combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse. Governments must ensure that they support education, research and innovation, have appropriate legislative frameworks in place, and that law enforcement has the resources it needs. Industry also must play a central role in tackling these crimes. The online world is a powerful and important creation, which has brought incredible change and benefits throughout the world. But along with these benefits, there are harms that arise from the misuse of the online world. Industry has many tools at its disposal to influence its design, and a central role to play in ensuring children are protected.
Industry made 29.4 million reports to the U.S. based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in 2021 alone. We applaud these efforts. We also note that over the last five years, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection's (C3P) "Project Arachnid", a web-crawling technology solution to identify child sexual abuse material, sent over 11 million notifications to 1,000 tech companies, spanning nearly 100 countries. In response to C3P's requests, companies removed more than six million images and videos of child sexual exploitation and abuse from circulation. These efforts show that online child sexual exploitation and abuse is a global threat, constantly evolving and changing with the landscape of online platforms, operating across a broad online ecosystem. However, the volume and severity of online child sexual abuse and exploitation material is increasing rapidly year on year, despite current efforts.
