"We are thrilled to partner with the Technology Coalition to make the online world safer for children," said Dr Howard Taylor, the Executive Director of End Violence.
Project Protect is an initiative led by the Technology Coalition, a group of 18 tech companies including Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple and Twitter. The End Violence Partnership is working with the Coalition on the research aspect of this project, while the WePROTECT Global Alliance is working to strengthen transparency and accountability across the industry.
“With the Technology Coalition’s financial and technical support, we will fund research to accelerate understanding of online child sexual exploitation and abuse,” said Dr Howard Taylor, the Executive Director of End Violence.
The plan is to focus on academic, applied, longitudinal research – as well as pilot studies on topics like the evolving threat landscape for children, the efficacy of outreach, deterrence and support interventions.
The project aims to push innovation in technology to detect child sexual abuse content, encourage more collective action toward the issue, and drive additional funding toward the prevention programming. In addition, the project has a focus on funding independent research, sharing information, and boosting transparency and accountability across the technology industry.
“These priorities reflect our view that in this evolving fight, technological innovation and sharing best practices will continue to create the biggest impact in our work,” said the Technology Coalition in a press release. “Especially when we combine our efforts and share our progress.”
Project Protect builds on the End Violence Partnership’s existing relationships with the Technology Coalition, including a recent campaign to keep children safe from online risks during COVID-19: Stay Safe at Home. Stay Safe Online.
Through its Fund, the End Violence Partnership is the only entity making targeted investments to tackle online child sexual abuse in the world. This year, its Safe Online investment portfolio will reach $50 million in investments in nearly 70 countries to support programmes and cutting-edge tech tools to prevent and end child sexual exploitation online.
“Over the past three years, we have generated and accumulated an invaluable amount of learning and knowledge on what works, which has informed our broader strategy and policy on online child sexual exploitation and abuse,” said Dr Taylor. “We look forward to bringing this expertise to Project Protect, and drawing on the strengths of our partners to end online violence once and for all.”