- Deletion Report 2017: The German Federal Criminal Office received 5,977 reports of CSAM web content
- Central bridging function of the eco Complaints Office: 88% of all reports on online child sexual abuse material come from the German complaints offices
- Annual Report of the eco Complaints Office documents successful work in 2017
The German federal government today published the evaluation report on the take-down of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) from the Internet for the year 2017. According to the report, in 2017 a total of 5,977 reports of CSAM were recorded by the German Federal Criminal Office (BKA), of which more than 80 percent related to content hosted abroad. The deletion report this year again demonstrates the effective working method between law enforcement agencies and the German complaints hotlines: The time taken for the forwarding of reported cases by the complaints hotlines to the BKA remained stable at an average of 15.1 hours (0.6 days) in 2017, despite the increase in the number of reports received.
Central bridging function of the eco Complaints Office: 88% of all reports on online Child Sexual Abuse Material come from the German complaints offices.
The federal government’s evaluation report clearly shows that the bridging function of the complaints offices has proven itself in the long-term: In 2017, the BKA received 88 percent of all reports of URLs containing CSAM from the German complaints offices. A mere one percent of all reports were received directly from a private individual.
“The current statistics demonstrate anew the longstanding and sustained work between the complaints offices and the law enforcement agencies on the basis of the principle of ‘take-down instead of blocking’, for which eco has consistently advocated for many years. This approach makes not only the rapid take-down of illegal content possible, but also the important process of prosecution,” says Alexandra Koch Skiba, attorney-at-law and Head of the eco Complaints Office.
Annual report of the eco Complaints Office documents successful work: Around 95% of illegal Internet content taken down worldwide
The eco Complaints Office itself has been working for around 20 years, primarily on a self-financed basis, using an approach based on the voluntary self-regulation of providers and the involvement of Internet users. Since the very beginning, eco has been cooperating with law enforcement agencies in the fight against child sexual abuse material and other illegal online content. A report can be made anonymously, if desired, to the eco Complaints Office, and the service is therefore also used by people that might have reservations about going directly to the police.
In 2017, a total of 27,660 reports (excluding spam and Usenet content) were made to the eco Complaints Office, of which 4,063 cases were justified. After a report being made by the eco Complaints Office, around 95 percent of the illegal Internet content hosted worldwide – such as depictions of sexual abuse, incitement of the masses, and depictions of violence – could be removed from the Internet. These and further statistics demonstrating the success rate in all areas of work of the eco Complaints Office can be found in the current Annual Report 2017.
Further information on the eco Complaints Office is available at: https://international.eco.de/eco-complaints-office/
