A number of internet regulations, devised by different internet companies as well as regulatory authorities, have tried hard to curb online child porn. Google is now spearheading a new effort to that end, creating a new cross-industry database highlighting instances of child porn, making it easier for different organizations to report them.
Google will populate questionable images into this database through a method known as ‘hashing.’ Hashing essentially analyzes the different specifics of an image, without caring about the type or resolution of the file. This helps it identify exact components that are specific to child-porn images and then flag these images to be removed from the web.
According to an official blog post by Google, “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.”
The post further reveals how the database being created by Google will help law enforcement agencies, “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.”
The search giant has also dedicated millions of dollars to curb child abuse and to ensure, through different charities and organizations, to rescue such children who have been victim of such issues.
Appreciating these efforts, an official of the UK government stated, “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.”
Courtesy: PCMag
[ttjad keyword=”chrome-laptop”]
