Child Abuse Online: Web Firms Attend Talks

Leading internet companies have agreed a new strategy with the Government in an attempt to crack down on child abuse online.

Firms including Google, Microsoft and Facebook attended the summit called by Culture Secretary Maria Miller.

And Mrs Miller told Sky News they had agreed a "fundamental change" to the way the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) works, with the industry-funded body set to adopt a role actively seeking out and blocking child pornography.

"What we've agreed today is a fundamental change to the way in which the industry will be working to remove illegal child abuse images that are too readily available online," she said,

"Now the Internet Watch Foundation will be able to seek out those images and that will be an important way of increasing the number of those images that are removed."

The main UK internet service providers (ISPs) have agreed to provide extra funding for the IWF, understood to amount to £1 million, to help it take on the extra duties.

Under existing arrangements the IWF only acts on content that has been reported to it rather than proactively seeking out illegal images.

The meeting comes after two child killers were found to have viewed such material online.

Mark Bridger, convicted of murdering five-year-old April Jones, and Stuart Hazell, who murdered Tia Sharp, 12, both accessed images of abuse.

Web giants outlined some action in the 12 days following the announcement of the summit.

TalkTalk and BT confirmed customers trying to view inappropriate material will be confronted by a pop-up warning.

And Google has pledged millions of pounds to organisations who try to tackle child abuse online, such as the Internet Watch Foundation, which maintains a blacklist of images.

It was unclear exactly what concrete action - if any - the Government would demand from the meeting, which comes as the Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre struggles with budget cuts of 10%.

Companies providing internet services in Britain have already rejected a call from the Prime Minister's adviser to impose parental filters for adult content as a default setting when viewing content online.

The Internet Service Providers Association said it remained opposed to default filtering because it "can be circumvented and lead to over- or under-blocking" of offensive web pages.