Tuesday, Dec 16, 2008    Text size: 

The Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography is a group of the world's most prominent financial institutions, Internet industry leaders and child protection agencies, working together with the shared goal of eliminating commercial child pornography.

Founding members of the Coalition include AOL, American Express, Bank of America, Chase, Citigroup, Discover, Visa, Wells Fargo, Yahoo and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).

ASACP Director of Technology and Forensic Research, Tim Henning, who attended the meeting, has been a part of the Analytics Working Group since the Coalition's inception and is also a member of its Technology Challenges Working Group.

At the meeting, Henning discussed ASACP's findings of a significant drop in commercial child pornography (CCP). Henning was able to confirm that ASACP's data coincides with NCMEC and law enforcement's data that there has been a decline of more than 60 percent in CCP compared to what was seen prior to September of 2007.

This decline is credited to the combined efforts of the members of the Coalition to inhibit the ability of child pornographers to process payments. This decline in CCP is also due to recent law enforcement takedowns of international child pornography rings over the past 14 months.

"ASACP is pleased that it has contributed to the takedowns of these CP rings," ASACP CEO Joan Irvine said.

According to the association, ASACP sends a large volume of CCP reports to NCMEC and law enforcement on an ongoing basis and Henning is constantly contacted by various law enforcement agencies for additional information. Most recently, an ongoing joint international law enforcement operation led to the arrest of more than 60 people in the United States involved in the trade of CP.

"Of course, none of our work with the Coalition would be possible without the support of our sponsors," Irvine said. "ASACP is grateful to the adult industry for funding our ability to fight child pornography."

Founded in 1996, the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection is a non-profit organization dedicated to eliminating child pornography from the Internet. ASACP also works to help parents prevent children from viewing age-inappropriate material online with its "Restricted to Adults" (RTA) website label. Companies and individuals can visit the www.asacp.org website for more information on how to get involved.