IWF Watch

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a self-regulatory body set up to rid the internet of child sexual abuse images, has opened itself up to judgement by a top human rights lawyer.

A human rights audit has been carried out by former Director of Public Prosecutions Lord Ken Macdonald. He concluded the IWF's fundamental work is entirely consistent with human rights law.

Lord Macdonald pointed to ways in which the IWF could further enhance standards and processes. Nine recommendations are made in the report published today 27 January 2014 , seven of which have been immediately agreed by the IWF Board.

Among his findings, Lord Macdonald concludes:

• The IWF's fundamental work of restricting criminally obscene adult material and all child sexual abuse material is consistent with human rights law;
• The IWF, although a private, industry-funded body, carries out public acts and therefore its policies and decision-making are susceptible to judicial review, a conclusion welcomed by the IWF Board;
• That the IWF should appoint a retired judge to act as an appeals commissioner and Chief Inspector to oversee disputes and inspections respectively and the Board should contain at least one acknowledged expert in human rights law, conclusions welcomed by the IWF Board.

The IWF currently targets:

• child sexual abuse content hosted anywhere in the world;
• supposedly obscene adult content hosted in the UK;
• non-photographic child porn images hosted in the UK.

Recommendations in the report with responses by the IWF Board

1.   IWF should in future restrict its remit to child sexual abuse material

IWF Board: A decision on this item has been deferred and will follow conversations with stakeholders [presumably the government] regarding this recommendation.

2.   IWF should appoint an expert in human rights law to its Board

IWF Board: Accepted.

3.   IWF should appoint a senior legal figure as its new Chief Inspector

IWF Board: Accepted.

4.   IWF's appeals process should include, as a final stage, a determination by the Chief Inspector

IWF Board: Accepted.

5.   Inspections of IWF's work should take place at least every two years. The Inspection team, headed by the new Chief Inspector, should include one expert in human rights law

IWF Board: Accepted. Inspections already take place every two years.

6.   If IWF moves into more proactive investigations, its analyst training should be updated to meet the further responsibilities inherent in an investigative role

IWF Board: Accepted.

7.   In any proactive investigations, IWF should liaise closely with police

IWF Board: Accepted.

8.   Proposed increases in IWF's industry funding should be maintained and expanded in order to make a move into more proactive work feasible in the longer term

IWF Board: Accepted.

9.   IWF should not, at present, investigate peer-to-peer file sharing. Instead, in light of the fact that it has subsumed CEOP with the apparent intention that investigations into online child sexual abuse material should be mainstreamed into the fight against serious crime, the National Crime Agency should now give these investigations high priority.

IWF Board: This decision has been deferred. It will follow a peer to peer consultation currently taking place and the pilot project with Google, Microsoft, the Home Office and CEOP. The IWF will be working in partnership to identify pathways to illegal material being shared via torrent feeds and subsequently remove access via the two market leaders in search. This project was announced on 18 November.

At the Internet Watch Foundation's (IWF) annual general meeting, former Director of Public Prosecutions Lord Ken MacDonald reported on the results of his review into the human rights implications of the IWF's activities.

The independent review was commissioned by the IWF following suggestions that its activities might contravene the rights enshrined in the Human Rights Act.

Lord MacDonald put these fears partially to rest, praising the IWF for the respect and sensitivity with which it had balanced the rights to privacy and freedom of expression with the important task of combating the distribution of child abuse images online. Lord MacDonald argued the IWF's activities in this area do impact on the rights to privacy and freedom of expression, but in a way which is proportionate and justifiable.

However MacDonald found that IWF activity in other areas may be at risk of contravening human rights.

Firstly, he suggested that the IWF should explicitly limit its scope to child abuse content, removing other potentially illegal content from its remit. Child abuse content is unique in that it is universally condemned by the public and it is relatively easy for IWF analysts to identify. Other illegal content, on the other hand, is a much more complicated and controversial area of law, where legal defences are potentially available to publishers that the IWF would not be well placed to adjudicate. IWF decisions to remove or block such content would run a much higher risk of impinging unacceptably on human rights.

Secondly, MacDonald argued that the IWF should limit its scope to identifying and removing child abuse content, as opposed to investigating perpetrators, which is the proper role of law enforcement. In particular, he recommended abandoning for the time being plans to investigate and disrupt the distribution of child abuse content over peer-to-peer networks. Investigation of peer-to-peer networks, argued MacDonald, inevitably involves a degree of intrusion that, while appropriate in the context of a criminal investigation, is not an appropriate role for a private body such as the IWF.

The MacDonald report is currently before the IWF board, who will decide whether to accept or reject its recommendations. The IWF has promised to release the report publicly once a decision has been made.

The Internet Watch Foundation does not at the moment pursue images and videos on so-called peer-to-peer networks because it lacks permission from the Home Office. But it was announced on Monday that the watchdog would begin a six-month pilot scheme in collaboration with Google, Microsoft and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection agency (Ceop), so that IWF can develop procedures to identify and blacklist links to child abuse material on P2P services.

Separately, David Cameron said the dark net , a general term for areas of the internet not accessible through search engines, was policeable. And he said that the government listening service GCHQ would be brought in to tackle child abuse images. Cameron told the BBC's Jeremy Vine:

There's been a lot in the news recently about the techniques, ability and brilliance of the people involved in the intelligence community, in GCHQ and the NSA in America. That expertise is going to be brought to bear to go after these revolting people sharing these images [of child abuse] on the dark net, and making them available more widely.

A No 10 spokesperson said the details of the project had yet to be confirmed but roles and responsibilities between IWF and the National Crime Agency would be clarified in due course.

Jim Gamble, former head of Ceop, said rather contradicting the need for all the Google work to block searches:

Nobody actually knows how much child abuse material is on the dark net, but the vast majority is shared on P2P. I think the government is masking the problem by not investing in real human resource.

IWF itself currently has only five staff monitoring the internet, though it has been given approval by its 110 industry members for a bigger budget, following a large donation by Google, and more resources from April 2014.