Child Porn Becoming 'More And More Disturbing' Says Watchdog

An Irish internet watchdog has revealed that reports of suspected child pornography have increased by 62% in the last two years.

The report released on Tuesday said operators of hotline.ie received over 2,590 reports last year and reported the kind of material being brought to their attention was becoming more and more disturbing.

Hotline Analysts confirmed they are seeing extremely explicit photos and videos of the rape and sexual abuse of children far more frequently than in previous years and stressed that Hotline management is worried by the lack of

complaints from the public regarding illegal content on Peer to Peer (P2P)

file-sharing services.

"Some of the most disturbing material the analysts saw last year was found on P2P services," a spokesman for the watchdog said.

Paul Durrant, General Manager of the Internet access association, ISPAI, said: "Many children use file-sharing and I appeal to the public to help rid P2P of such material by reporting suspiciously named files when they come across them."

However, hotline revealed despite 2,590 reports of suspected illegal material last year, none of the images, videos and other material was being hosted on Irish internet servers.

Mr Durrant said the work of ISPAI members and gardaí, supported by the Government, had successfully deterred criminals and paedophiles from using Irish-based internet facilities to harbour the illegal images.

But the group warned that combined and cohesive efforts of all those in the internet industry were needed to keep child porn off Irish servers.

(DW)