June 9, 2023 – Albania, through CRCA/ECPAT Albania, is the latest country to join an international alliance battling the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online. By becoming part of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection’s Project Arachnid, they are joining other international organizations working to classify material to expedite the issuance of removal notices on a global scale.
CRCA/ECPAT Albania joins other international hotlines, child protection organizations, and government agencies in Australia, Belgium, Cambodia, Columbia, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Lithuania, New Zealand, Sweden, and the U.S. Working together in Project Arachnid, which processes thousands of images per second and detects harmful content at a pace far beyond other methods, they contribute to disrupting the online availability of CSAM. Since its inception in 2017, Project Arachnid has been able to identify more than 55 million suspect images and send over 30 million removal notices to content providers.
In Albania, CRCA through the National Hotline for Safer Internet for Children www.iSIGURT.al has removed over 10,000 pages of CSAM, while has protected over 600 children from online sexual violence.
As a victim-centric tool, the success of Project Arachnid lies in its ability to break the cycle of victimization for children and survivors through the removal of CSAM. With more members, Project Arachnid’s reach expands.
To learn more about Project Arachnid, visit www.projectarachnid.ca
To learn more about the National Hotline for Child Internet Safety visit www.isigurt.al