The program, which was announced at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, blocks access to a black list of known illegal websites at the carrier level and comes in response to an increase in the use of mobile devices for sharing child pornography.
According to GSMA chairman Craig Ehrlich, the program will be available to any mobile operator, regardless of its level of sophistication or connection technology.
"Whether you are a parent or not, you cannot help but be horrified by child pornography," Ehrlich said.
Operators including 3, Orange, Telefónica, T-Mobile and Vodafone will implement the filtering technology and assist customers in flagging potentially illegal material.
Coinciding with Europe's fifth annual Safer Internet Day, Telefónica, owner of UK-operator O2, has also launched child protection websites to promote safer use of mobile devices by younger customers.
"The vast majority of this kind of content is viewed on computers, but it is a growing problem on mobile networks," Ehrlich said. "Most digital development is good for our lives, but it is important to stop criminals exploiting children."
Citing a 74 percent increase in online child pornography from 2005 to 2006, more than half of which are commercial operations often run by organized crime, secretary-general of the ITU Hamadoun I. Toure applauded the initiative and universal goal of protecting children from sexual abuse.
"This is one crime where there are no differences in ideology," Toure said. "Every culture bans this material."
European Commissioner for Information Society and Media, Viviane Reding, agreed, pointing to the 96 percent of EU mobile operators that have adopted the program.
"I am glad that the secretary-general of the ITU is with us on this, because it is a global problem," Reding said. "I want to thank the GSMA from parents and children."
"Once this global network is in place to block child pornography that same network can be used to fight other kinds of crimes," Toure said.
The GSMA represents companies reaching more than 2.6 billion customers worldwide.
