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What is ICCAM?
ICCAM, which stands for “I see Child Abuse Material,” is a system that enables the secure exchange of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) between our member hotlines in different jurisdictions. This possibility to securely exchange CSAM between hotlines facilitates a faster removal process of harmful material online. Furthermore, ICCAM provides a service to hotlines worldwide that assists them in classifying reported images and videos according to international standards (INTERPOL’s criteria) as well as national laws – all in one system.
How does ICCAM work?
Once an INHOPE member hotline receives a public report, the analyst assesses the reported material. If the received content is believed to be illegal, the associated URL is inserted into ICCAM. The system then crawls (identifies all links and webpages associated with the initial URL) all information found on that URL and the analyst can classify each image and/or video separately as baseline (internationally illegal according to INTERPOL’s criteria), nationally illegal or not illegal.
All content marked as baseline and nationally illegal is made available to INTERPOL through an ICCAM portal specifically designed for them. Consequently, INTERPOL downloads this material and transfers it for insertion into their International Child Sexual Exploitation Image Database (ICSE Database).
ICCAM & CPORT
In January 2023 INHOPE, in collaboration with ZIUZ Visual Intelligence, INTERPOL, Norwegian law enforcement agency Politidirektoratet, the Belgian Federal Police, Moldovan law enforcement agency Inspectoratul General AL Politiei and French law enforcement agency Gendarmerie nationale - Ministere de L'interieurl launched Project CPORT which will optimise the ICCAM system for multistakeholder collaboration. The aim of the project is to build on the current functionality of ICCAM by developing an access portal for law enforcement. Through this access, INHOPE aspires to facilitate an improved intelligence and information flow between key players in this field: INTERPOL, national law enforcement and the INHOPE network.
ICCAM is a tool that aims to:
- Be accessible to all INHOPE member hotlines
- Provide a technical tool for the secure exchange of CSAM among different jurisdictions around the world
- Facilitate improved stakeholder collaboration in the fight against CSAM online
- Enhance hotlines’ capacity and efficiently assist in identifying and analysing CSAM.
- Facilitate image/video hashing and crawling technologies
- Streamline the hotline’s workflow and content assessment by reducing hotline analysts’ exposure to known CSAM.
- Escalate “unknown” and “new” CSAM to law enforcement for victim/offender identification purposes
- Minimise instances of duplicate investigations
Who created ICCAM?
The INHOPE ICCAM platform was developed by Ziuz Forensics with funding from the European Commission under the Safer Internet and Connecting Europe Facility programmes (Digital Service Infrastructure for making a better and safer internet for kids). ICCAM enables multi-stakeholder collaboration between hotlines, Law Enforcement Agencies (particularly INTERPOL) and the industry.
Find out more about the latest CPORT Project Developments hereand sign up for a demo upon availability here.