Under an amendment to the Data Protection Act of 1998, approved this week after
being passed in the House of Lords on Tuesday evening, British police will be
able to give card issuers information on people suspected or convicted of
Internet child pornography offenses. Banks would then be able to cancel credit
cards and accounts used to access the illegal content as a result of a breach
of their usage terms and conditions.
Before the amendment approval, data-sharing restrictions meant that police were
prohibited from notifying card issuers if their customers were using their
credit cards to access illegal material online such as child porn.
The law change comes after collaboration between UK payments industry body
Apacs Administration, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center, the
Department for Constitutional Affairs, the Home Office and children's
charities.
"No card provider wants to be associated with those who commit these crimes,"
Sandra Quinn, director of corporate communications at Apacs, said in a
statement. "With this change in the law, our members will have the information
they need to remove offenders' cards."
UK data protection minister Baroness Cathy Ashton said the new rules, which go
into effect on July 26, are vital for disrupting and curtailing pedophile
activity on the Internet.
The IWF report has also found a trend for hosting noncommercial images of child
abuse on Japanese message boards, as well as growing use of online photo album
services posting images and distributing videos of child pornography online.
Through an online "hotline," IWF received 5,000 reports of child pornography
Web sites during the first six months of this year, up by 49 percent during the
same period last year.
