Google, Facebook and Twitter Will Block Out 'Hash Lists' Of Child Abuse

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), which is an anti-abuse organization, has started sharing lists of indecent images that are marked by "hash" codes, according to bbc.

By using the photo-tagging system, it could be a "game changer" to fight paedophiles, said the charity organization. Internet security experts, though, clarified that images on the "darknet" would not be detected.

The IWF is an organization that puts in efforts to remove indecent images of children, and gives to each picture a "hash" or a unique code, which is also referred to as a "digital finger-print".

If they share the "hash lists" of children's obscene pictures, the web giants, Google, Facebook and Twitter, prevent these images from being uploaded on their sites.

While the online security specialists called it a welcome and positive step, they said that it cannot block out content on the "darknet", which was a network with limited access on which abusers put up pictures.

The IWF said that creating hash tags can help such images from being "plucked" from the Net, according to itv.

Said Internet Watch Foundation chief executive Susie Hargreaves: "This is something we have worked on with our members since the Prime Ministers' #WePROTECT summit last December. We'll soon be able to offer the hash list to all IWF members, who are based around the world.

It means victims' images can be identified and removed more quickly, and we can prevent known child sexual abuse images from being uploaded to the internet in the first place."

In 2014, the Prime Minister David Cameron had called on intelligence experts and organised crime specialists to come together and stop child abuse pictures on the "dark net".

He agreed that online child exploitation reaches out in an "almost industrial scale" worldwide.