The hotline fields thousands of reports each month from concerned web surfers who’ve encountered illegal images of sexual abuse and the exploitation of children.
“ASACPs growth during the past 11 years reflects the online adult industry coming together to do the right thing, and we’re grateful to all of our amazing sponsors and members for making our work possible,” ASACP Executive Director Joan Irvine told XBIZ. “Unfortunately, these numbers show there’s still a great need for ASACP, and that’s a sobering reminder that our work must go on.”
When the hotline launched 11 years ago it only received 10-15 reports per day, according to Tim Henning, ASACP compliance director.
“Back then all submissions received hand-typed responses,” he said. “Validated reports were emailed to the authorities. But then as ASACP gained more and more exposure and support from adult companies, the number of sites linking to the hotline increased rapidly — and so did the volume of incoming reports. Today we’re also able to track and document hotline trends and statistics automatically, which means we can identify new scams and tactics used by CP operators.”
ASACP, formally known as Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection investigates reports of child pornography to determine the hosting, billing, IP address, ownership and linkage of suspected CP sites. Reports that get tagged with a red flag are forwarded to domestic and international agencies that protect children like the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.