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Minster for Justice and Equality welcomes Hotline.ie 2019 Annual Report
The Minister for Justice and Equality, Helen McEntee TD, has welcomed the publication of the 2019 Annual Report of Hotline.ie, the national reporting service for potentially criminal content online.
In 2019, Hotline.ie completed another year of its commendable and difficult work as a vital avenue for members of the public to securely, anonymously and confidentially report suspected illegal content online, particularly child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
Overseen by the Department of Justice and Equality, and collaborating with An Garda Síochána, Hotline.ie has carried out this work for 21 years with diligence and professionalism.
Recent years have seen considerable increases in the number of reports being received and actioned by Hotline.ie. As this report evidences, 2019 saw a 79% increase in such reports on the previous year. On the one hand, this reflects increasing public engagement with the service, but on the other hand, it potentially demonstrates a concerning increase in illegal online child sexual abuse material.
As this Annual Report details, each of these anonymous reports from the public received by Hotline.ie can involve anything from a single image to thousands of images and videos. Every such image and video is a crime, and for each of these there is a victim, or victims, who have suffered abuse, and who are revictimised each time their abuse is viewed as it is disseminated across the globe.
The Annual Report, which follows the publication of Hotline.ie’s updated Code of Practice, as announced by the Minister in July 2020, identifies CSAM hosted in 32 countries, including Ireland. 83% of CSAM reports showed children estimated to be between 4 and 10 years old.
Welcoming ongoing industry engagement, the Minister stressed that,
Combatting illegal, harmful and predatory use of the internet requires the broadest multi-agency responses possible. Hotline.ie supports such a collaborative approach, serving as both a conduit between An Garda Síochána and industry members and as a knowledge hub for industry.