Messaging app Telegram will roll out new tools to prevent the spread of child sexual abuse images after teaming up with the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), the British charity said on Wednesday.
The social media platform, which claims to have more than 950 million monthly active users, will use the IWF’s tools and data “to identify, destroy, remove and block images of child sexual abuse,” it said charitable organization.
The move comes after Russian-born Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov arrested in August at a Paris airport, and later charged with multiple counts of failing to curb extremist and terrorist content on the app.
Prosecutors also said the platform did not take action against images of child sexual abuse. Later, Durau, who was released on bail of five million euros ($5.6 million), announced the beginning of the fight against illegal content.
The IWF previously said it had discovered thousands of child sexual abuse images on Telegram since 2022.
The charity is a world leader in finding and reporting images and videos of abuse, being one of the few non-law enforcement agencies in the world with the legal authority to search for such material.
It is hoped that the new initiative will prevent the spread of illegal images in the public parts of the Telegram platform.
Derek Ray-Hill, the IWF’s interim director-general, called the partnership “a transformative first step in a much longer journey.”
“We look forward to seeing what next steps we can take together to create a world where the spread of sexual assault material online is virtually impossible,” he added.
The program will now use the IWF’s unique digital fingerprint of millions of known child sexual abuse images and videos to identify when criminal content is being shared.
The IWF will also report directly on Telegram when images of child sexual abuse are discovered.
Remy Vaughn, Telegram’s head of press and media relations, said the datasets and tools “will strengthen the mechanisms that Telegram has in place to protect the public platform.”
