Friendly WiFi joins forces with Project Arachnid in the fight to keep Children Safe Online
As a result of the successful growth and global acknowledgement of the Friendly WiFi Safe Certification Standard for Public WiFi, our certification programme has been recognised by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (Canadian Centre). This national charity operates Project Arachnid, an innovative tool to combat the growing proliferation of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on the internet.
Project Arachnid is a global solution and is accessible to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and filtering companies, allowing them to strengthen their filtering solutions in the global fight against online exposure to CSAM.
Industry can use the Arachnid API to quickly detect known CSAM on their service, which will, in turn, speed up its removal. Other industries, such as filtering companies, can download real-time lists of URLs that are believed to currently contain CSAM for filtering purposes.
Project Arachnid is currently detecting over 100,000 unique images per month that require analyst assessment, and this number has been increasing each month.
In addition to this, as of 1st March 2019:
61 billion+ images processed
7.5 million+ images triggered for analyst review
4,200+ victim series detected
1.6 million+ notices sent to providers
85% of the notices issued relate to victims who are not known to have been identified by police
Friendly WiFi is working with Businesses and Organisations worldwide who offer Public WiFi services, to provide them use of the Safe Certification symbol by checking they meet an industry recognised Safe level of content filtering, specifically:
The filtering of CSAM
The filtering of Pornography
The use of Project Arachnid has now been included as an acceptable level to meet the above requirement for the filtering of CSAM. This means that any Businesses or Organisation who evidence they are using Project Arachnid will be eligible to become Friendly WiFi certified.
Mike Davies, Director at Friendly WiFi said, “By adding the use of Project Arachnid to our list of acceptable solutions to meet the Friendly WiFi standard makes the certification far more accessible to Businesses and Organisations and by CCCP extending use of Project Arachnid on a global scale, gives Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and filtering companies more flexibility and access to solutions
which are designed to eradicate this type of material. Another tick in the box to help ‘tool’ up the industry and make the internet a Safer place”
Lloyd Richardson, Director of IT at the Canadian Centre said, “The only way to fight the overwhelming amounts of child sexual abuse materials online is globally. Project Arachnid helps address the harm facing survivors of this terrible crime, and the more companies collaborating with it, the more effective it will be.”
ENDS
For Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and filtering companies:
For more information and access to a testing/demo version of the API, or use of the list, visit https://projectarachnid.ca/en/contact/
All participating companies must have a legitimate business purpose for participating in Project Arachnid, as determined by the Canadian Centre.
About Friendly WiFi
Friendly WiFi is a government-initiated safe certification standard for public WiFi. It was initiated by the UK Government in 2014 to ensure public Wi-Fi meets minimum filtering standards, particularly in those areas where children are present.
Venues displaying the Friendly WiFi symbol have Wi-Fi filters which deny access to pornography and child sex abuse material (CSAM).
Friendly WiFi is operated by RDI (UK) Holdings Ltd which oversees the UK database of qualified, security checked, insured and safe digital installers.
For more information:
e: fw@rdi-online.co.uk
t: (+44) 345 257 2140
