Internet Watch Foundation

Nominations for this year's IWF ISPA Award are for any person, initiative, development, group or organisation which has most significantly contributed to combating illegal content on the internet during 2007.

 

The Internet Services Providers' Association (ISPA UK) has been organising the UK Internet Industry Awards since 1999 to herald the best of the Internet industry and to celebrate innovation and best practice. One of the Special ISPA Awards is the Internet Watch Foundation Award.

 

The shortlisted nominations for the 2008 IWF ISPA Award are:

 

Brightfilter
For commitment to consumer e-safety by offering ISPs, free of charge, the opportunity to deploy the Brightfilter filtering solution to protect their customers from accidentally stumbling across indecent images of children.

 

Childnet International – Know IT All 
For producing a range of excellent multi-media interactive learning resources for children, parents and teachers aimed at enhancing the online experience of children.

 

Professor Sonia Livingstone and Dr Leslie Haddon - EU Kids Online project
For their work to develop a flexible policy framework and further the academic research agenda into how people, especially children, use new media to assist in the formulation of recommendations for child safety, media literacy and risk awareness.

 

Rt. Hon. Alun Michael MP
For his longstanding contribution extolling the virtues of good practice, at home and abroad, of a self-regulatory approach to combating criminal content on the internet.

 

Richard Swetenham - Head of the eContent and Safer Internet Unit at the European Commission 
For his involvement with the issue of Internet content since 1996, drafting the first Communication on illegal and harmful internet content. He has been the driving force behind a variety of very successful EC Safer Internet Programmes, in particular the development of the INHOPE association of Hotlines. 

 

The winners will be presented with an award at a gala dinner held at the London Marriott Hotel in Grosvenor Square on the 14th March 2008.

 

For more information click here.

 

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About the Internet Services Providers’ Association 
The Internet Services Providers’ Association (ISPA) was established in 1995 as a trade association to represent providers of Internet services in the UK. ISPA promotes competition, self-regulation and the development of the Internet industry. For a list of members or other information about ISPA, please consult the website: http://www.ispa.org.uk 

The IWF is the only recognised organisation in the UK operating an internet ‘Hotline’ for the public and IT professionals to report their inadvertent exposure to potentially illegal content online.

 

Our aim is to minimise the availability of potentially illegal internet content, specifically:

We work in partnership with UK Government departments such as the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to influence initiatives and programmes developed to combat online abuse. This dialogue goes beyond the UK and Europe, to ensure greater awareness of global issues and responsibilities.

 

We are a self-regulatory body, funded by the EU and the wider online industry. This includes internet service providers (ISPs), mobile operators and manufacturers, content service providers, telecommunications and filtering companies, search providers and the financial sector as well as blue-chip and other organisations who support us for corporate social responsibility reasons.

  

Through the 'Hotline' reporting system, we help ISPs to combat abuse of their services through a ‘notice and take-down’ service by alerting them to any potentially illegal content within our remit on their systems and simultaneously inviting the police to investigate the publisher.

 

As a result, less than 1% of potentially illegal content has apparently been hosted in the UK since 2003, down from 18% in 1997.

 

In partnership with many organisations we strive to create continued awareness of the role and purpose of the IWF and aim to foster trust and reassurance in the internet for current and future users.

 

Please note that "child pornography", "child porn" or "kiddie porn" are not acceptable terms. The use of such language acts to legitimise images which are not pornography, rather, they are permanent records of children being sexually abused and as such should be referred to as child sexual abuse images.