LONDON—U.K.-based NetClean Technologies has unveiled a new “fingerprinting” technology that purports to more effectively scrub for images of child sexual abuse. Pulling from a database of over 400,000 images collected by the Swedish police, it “creates a digital signature for each image using a similar method to that adopted by anti-virus companies,” according to NetworkWorld.
Called ProActive, the technology has been launched in the U.K, and is directed at larger institutions rather than individuals, especially considering its cost of about $12,000 for a user-base of 1,000 computers.
According to NetClean CEO Christian Sjberg, large institutions need the product because their employees may be bringing the contraband to work with them rather than searching for it once they get there.
"Many collectors of child abuse images carry the images with them when they go to the office as they are often family men who think it is safer to view these images at work, because current filters only look for material coming off the internet," he said.
The company also warns that such employees may be using the company’s network to distribute the stuff.
“NetClean sees the strength of the system that it can detect what is a statistically rare but hugely serious offence, that of using a business network to distribute child porn,” reports NetworkWorld. “The company estimates that around one person is detected for every 1,000 licenses sold, far below the detection rate for adult porn access, which is nevertheless easier to spot using web filtering.”
The company also produces products that do the same thing for ISPs and law enforcement. The English authorities have become notorious for their increasing encroachment upon the privacy of U.K. citizens, of course, so it remains to be seen whether other democracies utilize Netclean’s products across public networks.
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