WASHINGTON - The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children has told the U.S. Congress it is working to create a centralized database that would make access to child pornography more difficult.
According to NCMEC, the database would make child-pornography image hashes accessible by Internet service providers and search engines, which could keep the images from appearing in search results and being accessed by Internet users. Ernie Allen, chief executive officer of the NCMEC, said the database would help stop the circulation of child pornography that appears online and in investigations.
The NCMEC is working with companies like Microsoft, Google and Yahoo to create the database.
"We recognize that law enforcement can often be at a disadvantage when dealing with high-tech issues," Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection Executive Director Joan Irvine told AVN Online. "That's why, over two years ago, ASACP, in conjunction with Cydata Services, offered a technological solution that would reduce child pornography on the Internet.
"We had proposed a hashing project that would have been a joint development effort to assist the state attorney general's office, ISPs and Web hosts to filter out child pornography," she continued. "At that time, they did not consider our solution viable. However, we are excited to learn that they now understand how this technology can work, and they are taking steps to implement it. ASACP fully supports their efforts."
The NCMEC's revelation was part of a larger Senate Commerce Committee hearing titled "Protecting Children on the Internet." David Finkelhor of the Crimes Against Children Research Center told the senators that, although Internet use has increased, the number of reports of sex crimes against children has decreased over the past 10 years. Though he said it would be a mistake to blame the Internet for making children more vulnerable to sex crimes, he said the Internet has made certain forms of predatory behavior easier, which has created a challenge for law-enforcement agencies, domain-name registrars and Web hosts.
