Illegal content
Some content available on the internet is simply illegal. Reporting such content and blocking sites containing illegal images of children helps stop the 'innocent' or 'curious' accidentally accessing illegal material. This contributes to international efforts to combat the exploitation of children by paedophile rings that operate through the internet.
Reporting and blocking illegal content
Vodafone is a founding member of the Mobile Alliance against Child Sexual Abuse Content, established by the GSMA in 2008. The Alliance aims to obstruct the use of mobile networks and services by individuals or organisations around the world who wish to access or profit from child sexual abuse content.
Members of the Alliance will prevent users from accessing websites identified as hosting child sexual abuse content and will remove any such content posted on their own services. Members will support and promote mechanisms such as telephone hotlines that customers can use to report child sexual abuse content discovered on the internet or on mobile content services. The Alliance aims to encourage the introduction of these reporting mechanisms across the mobile industry globally.
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) runs a hotline for reporting websites that contain illegal images of children, from which it compiles a list of these websites (the IWF list). The IWF has agreed that where there is no local national equivalent hotline organisation, our operating companies in all countries can use the IWF list to block access to child pornography.
The IWF list is already used by our operating companies in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Spain and the UK to strengthen the capability of their internet filters, and we plan to introduce this system in other markets in the future.
Vodafone UK is part of the Virtual Global Task Force (VGT) to help protect its customers from illegal content. Customers can find information and advice, and report suspected cases of abuse at the VGT website. The initiative has been pioneered by the UK’s National Crime Squad in association with Interpol and law enforcement agencies in Australia, Canada and the US. Customers who attempt to access a site which is identified as illegal by the UK Internet Watch Foundation will be denied access and receive a warning message from the VGT.