Back in 2006, the Technology Coalition was formed to fight against online child exploitation and abuse. The internet we knew then compared to present day is quite different, which is why the Technology Coalition has created a new collaborative platform called Project Protect.
Project Project encompasses many of the tenets that the Technology Coalition does, along with being backed by a number of big tech firms like Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Twitter to name a few.
The key difference, however, is that Project Protect has outlined five key areas that it will look to tackle over the next 15 years in order to make it far safer for children to use the internet and not run into many of the exploitative elements they experience currently.
“The number of people online – more than 4.5 billion in 2020 – has added to the challenge of keeping the internet a safe place. As a result, the technological tools for detecting and reporting CSEA (child sexual exploitation and abuse) content have become more sophisticated, but so too have the forms of abuse we seek to prevent and eradicate,” explains the Technology Coalition about this new initiative.
“To ensure the next phase of our work addresses these new and emerging challenges most effectively, we have conducted an in-depth consultation with more than 40 experts on CSEA around the globe,” it adds.
The aforementioned five key areas will form part of Project Protect’s first steps taken, with a further three different areas also being worked on – Establish a multi-million dollar research and innovation fund, commit to publishing an annual progress report and create an annual Forum for CSEA experts.
As for the five key pillars that Project Protect will look to tackle, they are as follows:
- Tech Innovation
- Collective Action
- Independent Research
- Information and Knowledge Sharing
- Transparency and Accountability
As with any initiative involving a number of big tech players, and one with a long 15 year roadmap like this, it remains to be seen just how committed the members of Project Protect are, or whether this will be another empty gesture.
With the role of big tech coming under even more scrutiny than ever in this day and age, we hope they can prove us wrong and deliver some tangible outcomes in the fight against online child exploitation and abuse.
To find out more about the Project, as well as the Technology Coalition, head here.
[Image – Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash]
