Disagreement Reigns Over Child Abuse Action

The revelation that Mark Bridger used search engines Bing and Google to try and find images of child abuse has led to predictable calls for "more to be done".

While it's not immediately apparent that any of the images the killer of April Jones had on his mobile phone were directly sourced through search engines, neither Google nor Microsoft (who run Bing) would be so bold as to argue that child pornography cannot be obtained in this way.

Both companies maintain that whenever they are made aware of illegal content they act immediately to delist it and inform the police. And they themselves are actively looking for this material in an attempt to limit its spread.

Software, in addition to human resources, is used to try and filter out explicit or illegal imagery.

But the tenacity of those supplying this illegal material should not be underestimated – abhorrent though it is to consider, there is a market hungry for child pornography.

Once specific keywords or domain names are identified and removed by search engines, others almost instantly spring up in a grotesque war of attrition.

There are also jurisdictional issues. Child pornography is, in general, not hosted on servers based in the UK – and although it would almost certainly be illegal no matter where in the world it is to be found, in other countries the process of shutting down websites can be rather more protracted than here.

Internet Service Providers find themselves in almost exactly the same position as the search engines, fighting a rolling, losing battle to try and stem the flow of illegal material.

But there is perhaps an even greater problem, and one not widely understood – that users cannot access the entirety of the internet through search engines.

Huge swathes of data, sometimes referred to as the deep web, are not indexed by Google and Bing and are often only accessible through fairly esoteric methods.

The deep web came to wider attention recently as the Bitcoin phenomenon spread, and more and more people became aware of the existence of online marketplaces like Silk Road where every flavour of narcotic can be purchased.

Despite its best efforts, law enforcement has had little effect on trade.

Ultimately, there will always be illegal material on the internet, and people clever enough to create means of accessing it anonymously.

But currently, as the case of Mark Bridger makes clear, you require precious little IT sophistication to access images of child abuse.

Education, of parents and children, remains the best way to protect against crimes like that of the death of April Jones.

Having one government agency take the lead in tackling child pornography would undoubtedly help. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) will shortly be subsumed by the National Crime Agency, and companies like Google and Microsoft are being advised by any number of Whitehall departments leading to crossed-wires and confusion.

Yet it is a simple truth that the only way to end access to this material would be to switch off the internet – if such a thing were even possible.

China and North Korea have effective limits on their citizens' use of the web. But even in the light of the hideous crimes of Mark Bridger and many others, an internet filtered by the State is anathema to those who see it, in general, as a tool for good not evil.

There is agreement that more needs to be done – no agreement on what that should be.