In 2002, Child Focus decided to set up a civil hotline for reporting such images. This fits the European Commission’s efforts to prevent illegal content on the Internet, and was thus created with the Commission’s support.
www.stopchildporno.be is a Belgian non-police hotline. Child Focus does not conduct investigations itself, but has a co-operation agreement with the police and the judiciary. Together with the police and the judiciary, Child Focus wants to ensure that as many images as possible of sexual abuse of children disappear from the Internet.
The objective of the civil hotline and the information provided on the Child Focus website is to increase Internet users’ sense of responsibility by providing them useful information about the problem and allowing citizens to report such images to Child Focus, anonymously if they wish, with the ultimate goal of ensuring their removal from the Internet.