Comment by Normal_gaussian
3 months ago
Generally if you encounter CSAM you should report to your countries appropriate organisation. Skip the police and go straight there to save everyone some time and avoid confusion. This agency will handle notifications etc to the site.
USA - https://report.cybertip.org/reporting
UK - https://report.iwf.org.uk/org/ (technically the NCA, but they are a catch all reporting target. As a private individual IWF will handle the onward report for you).
If you are in a country without such an agency, the above agencies are good to inform, as they will both handle international reports.
These organisations will ensure the material is taken down, and will capture and analyse it. CSAM can be compared against hash databases (https://www.thorn.org/) to determine whether there it is as yet unknown material or reshared known material. This can help lead to the identification, arrest, and conviction of material creators as well as the identification and support of victims.
If you tell the site administrator directly there is a good chance they will remove the material and not report it; this is a huge problem in this space at the moment.
In the UK and the USA (and many other places) operators are obligated to report the material; in fact the controversial Online Safety Act puts actual teeth around this very obligation in the UK.
Thorn is the same organisation which drives Chat Control in the EU and to have their secret component installed in every app to scan your messages. Working with these organisations harms consumers, is detrimental for privacy and human rights even if they somehow have good intentions.
The explanation seems a bit incoherent for this case of a french entity.
Assuming the complainant has some genuine tip,
Which court would actually determine it to be illegal conclusively? (It can’t be a uk or us court, could it?)
And who issues the binding order to take it down from the known sites?
The point is that these organisations are in contact with each other and have established channels of funneling reports to each other and relevant legal systems for action.
Making the report is a long way off court action, and it would be unusual for a court to be involved. In most cases the data is connected, documented, and site owners contacted and educated.
Very few countries see accidental/unintentional hosting as a crime (it will fail most reasonableness tests) and fewer are interested in prosecuting one off offenders who can just be asked to stop.
Most countries are very interested in prosecuting the underlying creators and finding and supporting the victims.
> Generally if you encounter CSAM you should report to your countries appropriate organisation.
So I should report that I consumed child porn? That's a hard pass from me.
I would generally use the standard precautions (VPN/Tor/etc.) but I think these organizations would much rather have you report the content than go after you, unless you've been reporting a suspicious amount of content that indicates you frequent such circles (i.e. you're one of those internet vigilantes).
Both of the reporting tools I linked allow fully anonymous reports.
If you are consuming or encountering CSAM in a fashion where it is not clear that you are not seeking it out and participating in its acquisition and distribution I suggest that you seek both medical and legal help.