User:HonkeyDude/CIRCAMP

CIRCAMP
CIRCAMP is an abbreviation for Cospol Internet Related Child Abusive Material Project. CIRCAMP is one of many COSPOL (Comprehensive Operational Strategic Planning for the Police) projects aimed at combating borderless or multinational crime in Europe. COSPOL is initiated by the EPCTF (European Chief of Police Task Force), a council of the national heads of police in Europe.

CIRCAMP is aimed at commercial and organized distribution of documented child sexual abuse, what used to be mislabeled "child pornography". In police terminology in general, and with CIRCAMP in particular, depictions featuring the sexual abuse or exploitation of children is not viewed to be pornographic, but rather an image taken - often by the offender - at a crime scene while the abuse is being committed. All such images are considered evidence in a past, ongoing or possible future criminal case, and should be handled as such.

Participants
CIRCAMP has 13 national police forces as members, in addition to analytical and operational support from Europol and Interpol. CIRCAMP is co-funded by the European Commission Safer Internet Programme. The countries included as members are:

Driver/Project manager: Norway Co-driver: UK Members: Ireland, France, Sweden, Italy, Finland, Belgium, Spain, Malta, Denmark, the Netherlands and Poland

Aims
One of the major ongoing tasks within CIRCAMP is the implementation and further spread of CSAADF, The Child Sexual Abuse Anti Distribution Filter. This is an access blocking methodology targeting web pages, and web pages only, disseminating child sexual abusive files, such as images and movies. CIRCAMP states that reducing the customer base for child sexual abusive material will result in less children having to be photographed and less of the already photographed children will have to experience that the images of their abuse is further distributed. By reducing the demand for child sexual abusive material on the web there will also be fewer suppliers of such material - resulting in less distribution of such material in general. Investigating and receiving tips on web content with abused children is work intensive and time consuming for the police, and only in a few cases widely successful. By preventing the crime being committed in the first place, it is possible to free up much needed police resources for more traditional online investigations and victim identification.

Evaluating sites for CSAADF
The police in all the participating countries that have an access blocking system in place evaluate the content of websites found in investigations, exchanged with other law enforcement agencies or received as tips from hotlines against the national legislation. If found to be illegal to download, possess or distribute in said country, add the domain or URL to their list of blocked addresses. The ISPs will then, either by agreement with the police or obligated by law, redirect the traffic to another server and display a "stop page". This "stop page" will explain the reason for the redirection of traffic, give links to legislation and ways to contact the police and contest the blocking as wrongful. The countries that have access blocking in place will share all information about illegal websites between them for individual evaluation against national legislation. By sharing the information rather than every country having to find, seize and investigate the material individually, massive amounts of time is saved - time that can be spent on other types of investigations.

The access blocking of child sexual abusive websites is purely preventive and no investigations against persons are started as a result of redirected Internet traffic.

Cooperation
Although CIRCAMP is a European/Europol police project, they are also cooperating with countries outside of the EU, such as Norway, Switzerland and New Zealand. The Internet is global and material made available in one country is instantly available in every other country in the world. Therefore, any police initiative on the Internet must also be global, while still abiding by national law and limitations.

CIRCAMP is also cooperating in cross border commercial exploitation of children in more traditional investigations. The disorganized and rapidly changing way information travels over the Internet makes cooperation against criminal groups that are making child sexual abusive material available for profit absolutely essential for success. CIRCAMP are planning to initiate international investigations against commercial procurers of such material with the aim of blocking the payment possibilities and investigating the persons within these organizations.