The GSM Association (GSMA) has introduced the Mobile Alliance Against Child Sexual Abuse Content, at the Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona, Spain.
The global initiative aims to obstruct users from accessing child porn through mobile devices.
Members of the alliance will implement technical mechanisms to prevent mobile access to Web sites identified as child pornography hosts by appropriate agencies, said GSMA chairman Craig Erlich at a media briefing yesterday.
They will also implement "notice and takedown" processes to enable the removal of any child sexual abuse content posted on their services, he said.
The initiative will also stem, and ultimately reverse, the growth of online child sexual content, Erlich stated.
According to Telenor, a European operator that successfully introduced a filtering system in Norway, the problem of child porn has grown dramatically over the past 10 years, with online child abuse content growing 74% from 2005 to 2006.
International law enforcement agency Interpol has found over 200 000 online images of child pornography, representing 20 000 individual children, Erlich explained.
About 82% of the children are under 12 years old, 39% under six years old, while 19% are under three years old, he added.
International measures
The Mobile Alliance Against Child Sexual Abuse Content is expected to have global scope. Mobile operators, governments and regulators will co-operate to make it difficult for child porn vendors to profit from the distribution of child abuse images.
Africa is represented in the initiative by the Vodafone Group and Orange Group.
Erlich explained that the initiative is still in its early days. It was easier to start the initiative with European operators, as the initiative was started with the support of the European Union, he said. The GSMA expects to triple the number of operators involved in the initiative in "no time".
Erlich also noted that the MTN Group is a board member of the GSMA. The association anticipates that MTN will sign up as a member of the alliance soon. MTN has presence in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East.
Legal steps
Speakers at the media briefing also emphasised the importance of government involvement for the alliance to be effective.
Governments and regulators should take measures to minimise the legal risks for operators to be involved in the fight against child porn by creating an enabling environment, said Boris Nemsic, CEO of Telekom Austria and chairman of the GSMA public policy committee.
International Telecommunications Union secretary-general Hamadoun Tour'e noted the advantage the alliance has is that there are no ideological differences among the different countries as to the nature of the crime. "We all agree that child porn is a crime."
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