Google are launching a new shareable database which will make it easier for organisations to report and subsequently remove images of sexual abuse of children from areas of the web.

Google have said that the database will identify images by a process of ‘hashing'. This algorithm can break down an image into specific components that can be identified. It also doesn't matter what the file type or resolution is either.

Google said on an official blog post “Since 2008, we've used ‘hashing' technology to tag known child sexual abuse images, allowing us to identify duplicate images which may exist elsewhere. Each offending image in effect gets a unique ID that our computers can recognize without humans having to view them again. Recently, we've started working to incorporate encrypted ‘fingerprints' of child sexual abuse images into a cross-industry database. This will enable companies, law enforcement and charities to better collaborate on detecting and removing these images, and to take action against the criminals.”

Google have also invested $5 million into a fund to help stop the abuse of children. Some of the funds will make their way into various charities and organisations. $1.5 million will go to the Internet Watch Foundation and another $1 million to the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited children.

Google are using $2 million to create their own Child Protection Technology Fund. This will create new software to fight the rise of child pornography.

John Carr a government adviser on internet safety spoke to the Telegraph and said “Google have stepped up. No one can argue about that. In all my time working in this space no company has ever devoted anything like this level of resources to working with civil society organizations to attack online child abuse images.”

Current statistics are horrifying. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received more than 17.3 million images and videos of suspected child abuse via their Cybertipline in 2011. Since 2007 this number has grown four times.

Kitguru says: Hopefully the moves by Google will help long term.

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