NetClean to help UK Home Office fight child abuse

NetClean to help UK Home Office fight child abuse

UK Home Office ready to honour Government's commitment to fight Child Abuse using the latest technical solutions from NetClean and partners

London, UK, 16th October 2014 – NetClean, a provider of intelligence solutions designed to create a safer society, has announced that it has successfully collaborated with its partners, Hubstream and L-3 ASA, to implement the first phase of the UK’s national Child Abuse Image Database (CAID).

The CAID plays a key part in delivering on the UK government’s promise to create a central repository for consolidating data in cases of child sexual abuse material. The new service will enable crime units to share data, information and leads as part of the fight to protect children from exploitation. The contract was awarded to L-3 ASA, who is delivering the solution together with NetClean and Hubstream. The selection was made through the UK Government’s G-Cloud framework and the service will be rolled out over a two-year timeframe to 46 police forces and law enforcement agencies across the UK.

NetClean’s Analyze Collaboration Server will act as a central hub where files are stored and easily extracted for new investigations. The CAID service enables law enforcement agencies to search content on seized devices for child abuse images and to quickly differentiate between new and existing material, allowing them to focus resources accordingly. As part of CAID, NetClean will also provide a client server solution for streamlining the collection, analysis, correlation and deconfliction of child sexual abuse material.

NetClean will integrate with the Hubstream Intelligence Server to support the complete investigative lifecycle from intake, triage, reviewing and assigning investigations, through to resolution and closure. The database will provide law enforcement agencies within the secure national police infrastructure with access to accurate information on child exploitation cases so that they can share data and identify patterns in information.

The CAID service will improve the ability of authorised officers in the National Crime Agency and police forces to identify and safeguard victims. Having access to a CAID will also enable greater collaboration between local, national and international crime units, such as Interpol, so that forces can work together on investigations.

Johann Hofmann, Product Manager NetClean Analyze, said: “It’s hugely exciting to be working on such an important project. The joined-up investigative approach that the CAID enables will have a significant impact on how UK law enforcement tackles sexual crimes against children and puts the UK at the forefront of how to investigate this crime. The CAID is a promising step in the intelligent analysis of digital media and big data, as the more data the system holds, the better insight it provides.”

Benefits of the system include:

• Greater collaboration: The CAID service will help consolidate data in child sexual abuse material cases so that public authorities have the opportunity to share data, information and leads pertaining to child sexual abuse cases between local, national and international crime units.

• More efficient workflows: Remove the duplication of effort in categorising images and in identifying victims so that investigations are more efficient, saving time and freeing-up valuable resource from evidence processing to focus on identifying the victims within illegal images or videos.

• Quickly identify new victims: Empower law enforcement bodies to work faster in identifying links between child sexual abuse cases, break abuse rings and spot new material that may indicate new victims.

• Enhanced integration: The CAID service will integrate with crime units’ existing forensic systems and the tools already in place to process evidence.