UZ Antwerp participates in an app to combat child pornography: “Could be an essential step”

The European Commission is funding a new international project to ensure that people who view or tend to view images of child sexual abuse online are prevented from doing so. “This can be an essential first step in a more preventive approach,” says Kris Goethals, director of the University Forensic Center (UFC) at UZ Antwerp.

Guy Stevens

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Since the Covid pandemic, there has been a spike in online images of child sexual abuse around the world. Care providers note that there is also an increasing group of people who view such images or tend to look at them, but actually do not want to. “This concerns both people who have come into contact with the law and people who have not committed any criminal acts but are seeking help because they are concerned about their viewing and downloading behaviour,” says Tineke Dilliën of the University Forensic Center (UFC). ) of UZ Antwerp. “People often resolve not to perform this behavior (any longer), but sometimes lose control when they are active online and see certain pop-ups or images.”

To help the group of people seeking help for those tendencies, an international project funded by the European Commission will start in March in which the UFC participates. The intention is to develop an app that makes it impossible for people who install it to view such images on their computer, tablet or smartphone. Whether they actively search for it themselves, accidentally end up on such a site or receive images. “This will be done on the basis of artificial intelligence, which will detect the images and, through machine learning, will also get better at recognizing them,” says Dilliën. When those images are detected, that app will block the images.

According to Professor Kris Goethals, director of the UFC, the app can be an essential first step in a more preventive approach to the problem. “Unfortunately, simply tackling this phenomenon in a repressive manner offers no solace,” he says. The initiators of the project are convinced that there is a large group of people who would voluntarily install the app and could really benefit from it. The belief is that it can help reduce the growing demand for those images.