IWF: Role and Remit

Remit
To minimise the availability of potentially criminal internet content specifically:

• Images of child sexual abuse* hosted anywhere in the world.
• Criminally obscene adult content hosted in the UK.
• Incitement to racial hatred content hosted in the UK.
• Non-photographic child sexual abuse images hosted in the UK.

If your query relates to an issue outside the four points in IWF's remit please click here.

Role

To foster public trust and confidence in the internet by:

• Operating a national hotline to enable the public to report instances of potentially criminal online content within remit.
• Promoting awareness of its remit and role, and the assistance provided to industry and law enforcement partners.
• Promoting awareness of its self-regulatory function, and the role of other key stakeholders in making the internet safer.

To assist service providers to combat the abuse of their systems by:

• Operating a 'notice and take-down' service to remove potentially criminal online content at source by alerting hosting companies to content within remit on their servers.
• Providing a list of newsgroups related to child sexual abuse content to enable service providers to disrupt the distribution of this content via such groups.
• Providing a list of specific URLs hosted abroad with child sexual abuse content to enable service providers to prevent inadvertent access to this content.
• Acting as a relevant authority and point of expertise as regards the reporting, handling, assessment, and tracing of content within remit.

To assist law enforcement in the fight against potentially criminal online content by:

• Disrupting the online distribution and accessing of content within remit.
• Working with law enforcement agencies to remove online content within remit.
• Supporting investigations to trace those responsible for such criminal activity.
• Providing details of online child sexual abuse content hosted outside the UK to international Hotlines.
• Sharing expertise, experience, and intelligence with law enforcement and other relevant organisations.

*Please note the IWF use the term child sexual abuse images to accurately reflect the gravity of the images we deal with. They are also commonly referred to as: Child Pornography, Child Porn, Child Porno and Kiddie Porn. If you see such images online please report them.