European governments will spare no effort in assuring that competent Internet authorities and bodies prevent registration of, identify and remove any web addresses which self-evidently, sometimes even in their names, advertise child abuse material.
This is a key conclusion of a meeting of the Lanzarote Committee taking place in Strasbourg today. It is bringing together representatives of the 41 countries that ratified the Council of Europe’s Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (Lanzarote Convention), as well as representatives of other states and international organisations.
In the Declaration adopted today, the Lanzarote Committee members voiced their concern by the registering of web addresses which self-evidently advertise or promote child abuse material or images, and affirmed the importance of putting an end to this practice. They urged the Parties to the Convention to take all necessary measures to prevent and prohibit such web addresses, and to call on competent authorities and bodies, at a national and international level, to identify and remove any such web addresses, as well as to ensure that no new addresses of this kind are registered.
According to the UK-based Internet Watch Foundation, a hotline for reporting criminal content online, 2015 for the first time saw generic top-level domain names, created along the traditional .com or .biz, registered specifically to share child sexual abuse imagery.
Last week, addressing the European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG 2016) in Brussels, Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjorn Jagland stressed that web addresses promoting sex crimes against children must be stopped.
On 3 June 2015, the Committee of the Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted a Declaration on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), human rights and the rule of law, encouraging its member States, through their membership in the Governmental Advisory Committee of the ICANN to ensure that ICANN assumes responsibility for respecting internationally-recognised human rights law and standards. The Council of Europe is an observer in the Governmental Advisory Committee where 35 out of 41 Parties to the Lanzarote Convention are also represented.