A bipartisan bill to protect children from online sexual exploitation is on its way to President Biden’s desk.
Proposed by Senators Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and Marsha Blackburn (R-SC), the bill seeks to strengthen the CyberTipline of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). When an online service provider detects child sexual abuse material (CSAM), the platform is legally required to report it to CyberTipline. Next, NCMEC works with law enforcement to investigate the crime.
The problem is that NCMEC is understaffed and running on outdated technology. According to a report from the Wall Street Journal and the Stanford Internet Observatory, the platforms send CDs and USB drives containing CSAM to NCMEC, where they are manually uploaded to the nonprofit’s database. And as AI-generated CSAM becomes more prevalent, the deluge of reports will only make it more difficult for NCMEC to investigate urgent child sexual exploitation threats in a timely manner. Currently, according to Stanford research, only 5 to 8 percent of reports result in arrests, due to a lack of funding, ineffective technology and other constraints. This is especially staggering when you consider that the CyberTipline received more than 36 million reports last year – when the tipline was established in 1998, it handled 4,450 reports.
“NCMEC faces resource constraints and lower salaries, leading to difficulty retaining staff who are often poached by industry trust and security teams,” the Stanford report said. “Although progress has been made in resolving conflicts in reports – identifying connections between reports, such as identical offenders – the pace of improvement has been considered slow. »
This bill won’t solve all of these problems, but it will allow providers to retain report content for up to a year, instead of just 90 days, giving law enforcement more time to investigate the crimes. Instead of relying on decades-old storage methods, the bill also provides a way for NCMEC to legally store data using commercial cloud computing services, which could make the process easier. evaluation of reports more effective. Providers will also face higher fines if they fail to report suspected violations to NCMEC: for platforms with more than 100 million users, a first offense carries a fine of $850,000, up from $150,000 . In addition to their obligation to report CSAM content, platforms will also be required to report any incitement against children.
“At a time of such division in Congress, we are bringing Republicans and Democrats together to protect children online,” Senator Ossoff said in a statement.
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