Home Truths

The Internet Watch Foundation exists to stop the sharing, trading, and distribution of child sexual abuse imagery on the global internet. Our team of specialist analysts receive reports from the public and proactively search for, images and videos showing the sexual abuse of children online and then work with a number of global partners and law enforcement to have these images removed, stopping the repeat victimisation of survivors, and making the internet a safer place for everyone. In 2020, during the COVID pandemic, we saw a startling increase in the amount of ‘self-generated’ child sexual abuse we were finding on the open internet. Self-generated content can include child sexual abuse, created using webcams, sometimes in the child’s own room, and then shared online. In some cases, children are groomed, coerced, or extorted into producing and sharing a sexual image or video of themselves. In response to this growing threat, the IWF worked with other child-protection charities to fully understand the danger and devise a multifaceted campaign to raise awareness of the problem and prevent this abuse from happening before it takes place. Our Home Truths video, targeted at parents, was one key element of this campaign.