For more than 15 years now, eco – Association for the Internet industry, has been successfully fighting against illegal content on the Internet. The eco Complaints Office accepts complaints concerning all Internet services, ranging from chat rooms to e-mail and websites. Alexandra Koch-Skiba, Head of the eco Complaints Office, explains in an interview how important and effective their daily work is.
Ms. Koch-Skiba, why is the eco Complaints Office so important for the fight against child sexual abuse material on the Internet?
A large share of the reports on child sexual abuse material received by the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) originates from German complaints offices – for example, last year alone it was 92 percent.
Complaints offices such as the eco Complaints Office are an important point of contact for Internet users who discover potential illegal online content, especially with regard to the depictions of sexual abuse of children. These types of content can be reported anonymously to the complaint offices if desired – a possibility that our complainants often make use of.
In addition, we also accept information from international partner organizations on depictions of the sexual abuse of children hosted in Germany.
What is the normal procedure, starting with the receipt of the complaint?
First of all, the content is viewed, followed by legal evaluation and so-called “tracing”, i.e. the identification of the provider hosting the content.
If the reported content contains child sexual abuse material according to § 184b of the German Criminal Code (StGB) and is hosted in Germany, then we inform the BKA. After a waiting period, we will ask the host provider to delete the content. If the content is hosted abroad, we will inform the BKA, the corresponding INHOPE partner complaints body and/or the host provider, depending on the hosting country.
How does the international cooperation with other complaints office work?
We cooperate internationally with our INHOPE partner complaints offices. INHOPE is the umbrella association of complaints offices that receive complaints about the depiction of sexual abuse and exploitation of minors. INHOPE was partly founded by eco in 1999 and has now more than 45 members in over 40 countries.
The INHOPE membership allows us to exchange information with complaints offices that are located in different countries. The partner complaints office then initiates further action, for example, notifying the law enforcement authorities in the hosting country and requesting that the content be deleted.
What other types of illegal content does the Complaints Office deal with?
The eco Complaints Office mainly deals with information on violations of youth media protection in the broadest sense, e.g. racist content, depictions of violence, pornographic content of any kind, but also the glorification of anorexia or self-harm. In addition, the eco Complaints Office also receives reports on unsolicited advertising e-mails .
