If you suspect a child is in immediate danger in any way, contact the police immediately.
Disclaimer
The information provided on this page does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; instead, all information, content, and materials available on this page are for general informational purposes only. Information on this page may not constitute the most up-to-date legal or other information. This page contains links to other third-party Web sites. Such links are only for the convenience of the reader, user or browser; IFTAS and its members do not recommend or endorse the contents of the third-party sites.
Readers of this page should obtain legal advice with respect to any particular legal matter. No reader, user, or browser of this site should act or refrain from acting on the basis of information on this site without first seeking legal advice from counsel in the relevant jurisdiction. Only your individual attorney can provide assurances that the information contained herein – and your interpretation of it – is applicable or appropriate to your particular situation. Use of, and access to, this page or any of the links or resources contained within the site do not create an attorney-client relationship between the reader, user, or browser and Web page authors, contributors, contributing law firms, or IFTAS members and their respective employers.
User Generated Content
If you operate an ActivityPub service you are an electronic communications provider and you likely meet the definitions of ESP, ISP, online service provider, and other nomenclature in law that describes electronic communications services. Services that federate with third parties, and/or have their content feeds visible to public users, and/or allow user account creation, are liable for the content they host and display to end users in all jurisdictions.
National and Extranational Law
Scroll down in the linked page to review the legality of real/realistic; fictional; and possession in most countries.
Legal status of fictional pornography depicting minors
Regardless of its legality in a given jurisdiction, if your content is available to end users in a jurisdiction where such content is illegal, you are liable for its availability.
Detection
Services exist to compare stored media with hashes of known material, and ML-assisted perceptual matches. For the most part, these are heavily restricted and will require your ability to sign legal agreements with the service providers.
If you are an independent provider and would like to use IFTAS detection services, please fill out this Needs Assessment: https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/thnEBypiNlR6qklaQNmWAkoxxeEEJdElpzM7h2ZIwXA/
CDN
- Cloudflare CSAM Scanning Tool: https://developers.cloudflare.com/cache/reference/csam-scanning/
- Appears to be US-only as it requires NCMEC credentials, which can only be acquired by US entities
Hash and Match APIs
Generally free of charge, these services allow you to call the API and receive a classification repsonse (e.g. “CSAM, likely CSAM, unknown”). You will likely be required to sign binding agreements.
- (Canada) Project Arachnid Shield: https://projectarachnid.ca/en/#shield
- (USA) Microsoft PhotoDNA: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/photodna
- (Netherlands) Instand Image Identifier: https://web-iq.com/solutions/instant-image-identifier-to-fight-csam
Standalone Platforms
- Thorn Safer (paid): https://get.safer.io/csam-detection-tool-for-child-safety
- Meta PDQ (open source): https://github.com/facebook/ThreatExchange/tree/main/pdq
- AI Horde csam_checker (open source): https://github.com/Haidra-Org/horde-safety/blob/main/horde_safety/csam_checker.py
ActivityPub Platform-specific
- (Lemmy) A script that goes through a lemmy pict-rs object storage and tries to prevent illegal or unethical content: https://github.com/db0/lemmy-safety
- (Firefish) CloudFlare configuration: https://socialweb.coop/blog/firefish-cloudflare-quickfix-r2-tutorial/
