week 12 - We still need humans to identify sexually explicit images online – for now

Jeremy Hunt’s claim that technology could soon automatically spot and block ‘sexting’ among under-18s is a little premature, if not inconceivable. But we still rely on real people to identify images of abuse online, and it’s no easy job


When Peter, an analyst at the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), is on “hashing” duty, he might look at 1,000 images of child sexual abuse in a single day. His job is to filter them. Some of the photographs the IWF picks up on its trawls of the web, or that members of the public send to the organisation, fall outside criminal boundaries: one might, for example, show a toddler working on a sandcastle.

Each photo he hashes as abusive – from Category C (indecent) to Category A (penetrative) – can swiftly be blocked wherever it appears on the public internet. That is why Peter, a father of two, does the job.

On Tuesday, Jeremy Hunt suggested it might not be necessary for much longer. Technology exists, he said, that can “identify sexually explicit images and prevent [them] being transmitted”; this could facilitate a complete bar on sexting for under-18s. Well, says Peter, he isn’t redundant yet. “It would be amazing,” he says, in a room across the hallway from where IWF staff have just finished a mindfulness session, “if there was a magic brush that could do this kind of job.” Almost all of the “hashing” process runs automatically. 

Due to new/digital media evolving so quickly, I think it's become harder to block and spot certain things such as sexting. In my opinion, I think there needs to be a more efficient way in order to spot these kind of things.