§ Mr. DrewTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many websites regulatory bodies have closed down because of the presence of illegal images and content in each of the last two years. [174833]
§ Mr. TimmsIn the UK the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is charged with the responsibility of managing consumer complaints about potentially illegal content online.
The IWF's Internet Hotline deals with reports of potentially illegal Internet content, such as websites, newsgroups and online groups that contain: images of child abuse anywhere in the world; adult material that potentially breaches the Obscene Publications Act in the UK; and criminally racist material in the UK. Statistics taken from the IWF's annual reports show that in 2002, 88 UK websites and in 2003, 34 UK websites were removed due to potentially illegal content. For images of child abuse hosted overseas the information is passed to IWF's counterparts and law enforcement agencies in those countries and there are no statistics on how many of these sites have been closed down.