Messaging app Telegram will deploy new tools to prevent the spread of images of child sexual abuse after teaming up with the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), the UK-based charity said Wednesday.
The social media platform, which claims to have more than 950 million active users per month, will use tools and data from the IWF “to detect, disrupt, remove and block child sexual abuse imagery,” the charity said.
The move comes after Telegram’s Russian-born founder and chief executive Pavel Durov was arrested in August at a Paris airport and later charged with several counts of failing to curb extremist and terrorist content on the app.
Prosecutors also claimed the platform had failed to take action against child sexual abuse imagery. Durov, who was released on a five-million-euro ($5.6 million) bail, later announced a crackdown on illegal content.
The IWF said previously it had found thousands of instances of child sexual abuse imagery on Telegram since 2022.
The charity is a global leader in tracking down and reporting images and videos of abuse, being one of the few non-law enforcement bodies worldwide with the legal power to search for such material.
It is hoped the new initiative will prevent the spread of illegal images on the public parts of Telegram’s platform.
Derek Ray-Hill, interim CEO at the IWF, called the partnership “a transformational first step on a much longer journey”.
“We look forward to seeing what further steps we can take together to create a world in which the spread of online sexual abuse material is virtually impossible,” he added.
The app will now use the IWF’s unique digital fingerprints of millions of known child sexual abuse images and videos to spot when criminal content is being shared.
IWF will also report directly to Telegram when child sexual abuse imagery is detected.
Remi Vaughn, head of Press and Media Relations at Telegram, said the datasets and tools “will strengthen the mechanisms Telegram has in place to protect its public platform”.
