App soon available to stop people from viewing child pornography

A special app will soon be available to protect people from being exposed to images of sexual abuse of minors. This app is currently being developed and will be tested with test subjects from various countries starting this spring, the Online Child Abuse Expertise Office (EOKM) reported.

​​"The app monitors both network traffic and images displayed on the user's screen in real time," EOKM said. "The app works in the background, so users don't notice anything unless images of sexual abuse of minors are viewed." These will then be blocked.

There are already several so-called porn blockers, but they do not yet work smoothly against images of children. For example, a father who takes an innocent picture of his child in the bathtub may already get into trouble as a result.

Online Child Abuse Expertise Office expects to find enough test subjects, because there are certainly people who want to protect themselves from this tendency, according to employee Eline d'Ailly. Arda Gerkens, general director of Stop it Now, part of the Online Child Abuse Expertise Office, agreed: "People who contact our counseling center are often looking for technical tools to help them stay away from this material."

"In addition, the app prevents re-victimization among victims of sexual abuse who suffer from seeing their images over and over again on the Internet," the EOKM explained.

According to EOKM, the project is led by the renowned Charité hospital in Berlin and is funded by the European Commission for 2 million euros.