Child Wise and NetClean

Protecting Australian organisations from child sexual abuse offences.

A lot of companies are shocked to hear that corporate computers and mobile devices are used to access child sexual abuse and exploitation material – and on a surprising scale. Before COVID, the statistics were already that roughly 1 in every 500 employees used a work computer to access or distribute child sexual abuse material. During COVID, reports of online child abuse surged in Australia. In the first three months of lockdowns, this increased by 122%.  Many offenders are using the work-from-home environment to do this.

Offenders are often opportunistic and will use the resources immediately accessible; including work computers and devices, if they believe they won’t get caught. The privacy provided by a work device also gives a measure of security to offenders who may share a home computer with family members.

There is a very real chance an offender may exist in your organisation or will in the future. Offenders can exist in any area of life and in any organisation, regardless of how big or small it may be. 

The important thing is whether you have taken appropriate steps to protect your network, your staff, and your reputation. Even if your organisation does not directly interact with children and young people, can you be sure that your organisation is not being used to perpetuate crimes against them?

The unique risks to your company

Engaging a solution that identifies where this is happening and reports it to you, of course means that your organisation is making a major contribution to intervening in one of society’s most heinous offences. But aside from ‘doing good’, why else do you need it?

• Most importantly, if your business interfaces with children in any way, shape or form these employees pose a major risk to children. Evidence shows us that offenders tend to gravitate to such positions and industries.
• Employees who engage in criminal activity are more likely to be engaging in other criminal or risk-taking behaviour using your corporate resources, including steps to facilitate their offending. 
• We know that demonstrating how you meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be a challenge. As you’d be aware, recently it was reported that only 18% of ASX listed companies disclose integration of SDGs with their business strategy. This technology is a loud and clear representation of just that integration. 
• These offending behaviours also introduce significant security risks for the integrity of corporate devices, through the areas of the internet that are accessed, or storage solutions that are utilised.

You don't have anything that will intercept this - unique technology backed by law enforcement

Most corporate networks will have protections against many common malicious intrusions, but the fact remains that these solutions will not protect you against offenders who are within your technical environment. 

There is no other product on the market that can reliably detect an employee or contractor uploading or downloading child sexual abuse material. And no: blockers, firewalls or virus protection software do not solve this problem. Offenders are able to circumvent traditional protections such as filtering and scanning in order to facilitate their behaviour with relative ease. Quite simply, if you don’t already have ProActive, you don’t have effective protection. ProActive is the only technology that is able to bridge this gap in protective technologies. This solution has not yet been picked up by Australian businesses.

ProActive is able to detect files and traffic of all kinds, regardless of whether they have been introduced through web browsing, as an attachment to an email, a personal USB drive, through the dark web, or personal cloud storage (such as Dropbox). Furthermore, detections are managed in a discrete and secure way that can easily be built into organisational policies and procedures that may already exist.

Australian police confirm that NetClean ProActive is the only product of its kind. Police also confirm that ProActive delivers on what it sets out to do, to detect offenders, rescue children, and have a real impact on disrupting the supply of CSAM. 

“Definitely the most suitable, relevant and best out there.” 

“A great product… A very reputable product and organisation.”

Australian Police

NetClean ProActive is not country-specific or industry-specific. NetClean’s technology is in place across 110 countries, in 16 different industries, across the globe. Many large organisations have recognised that by implementing this technology in their environment, they are not only able to more fully protect their IT environment, but be at the forefront of ethical leadership. They recognise that acting on their ethical values and taking concrete action to create a brighter future for children is also good business.

Child Wise is actively promoting the rollout of ProActive because it is an unobtrusive technology that is capable of making a tremendous difference to the wellbeing of children across the world. Child Wise has engaged with Australian law enforcement to accelerate the introduction of this technology to Australia. 

What does it mean for your business if employees use work devices to access child sexual abuse material?

The abhorrent acts that define child sexual abuse serve to traumatise those most vulnerable members of our society; those who we carry an inherent obligation to protect. The proliferation of material that depicts these acts serves to perpetuate this trauma for victims. Victims of abuse are intensely aware that once shared, the material is virtually impossible to remove from circulation. The knowledge that this material depicting their trauma is still out there creates a significant barrier to healing.

Offenders tend to use a variety of techniques to access and distribute child abuse material in a discrete manner that affords them protection. This can typically include accessing dark web sites that have not been filtered, cloud storage where offender communities have saved material, peer-to-peer sharing, proxies, and the use of encrypted USB storage devices. These methods all carry an inherent security risk to the integrity of your corporate network and the data and intellectual property it houses. 

While traditional security mechanisms are able to inhibit some of these behaviours, communities of offenders regularly cooperate to circumvent them and to avoid detection.

This is the Child Wise - NetClean partnership. 

NetClean give you the only technology in the World to identify the problem. Child Wise empower you to solve it.