A/HRC/28/56
on the consolidation of successful initiatives and good practices which are compliant with
international standards, including the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
(contained in A/HRC/17/31, annex).
(a)
Financial Coalition against Child Pornography
76.
Credit card companies such as Visa and MasterCard have long adopted the approach
of not profiting from child sexual exploitation, which reflects a degree of social
responsibility. They have developed technology to detect transactions that are related to
child sexual abuse and exploitation, to either block them or alert the authorities.
77.
Financial institutions have adopted more coordinated approaches. In 2006, the
Financial Coalition against Child Pornography was established in the United States, which
is a coalition of the major banks and financial clearing houses. They were brought together
by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the International Centre for
Missing and Exploited Children with a shared commitment to fight child pornography by
blocking the commercial element. It currently covers 90 per cent of the United States
financial industry.63 Since its inception there has been a 50 per cent reduction in
commercial websites reported to the National Center,64 demonstrating significant impact.
78.
The success of the Financial Coalition led to Europe creating its own financial
coalition. The European Financial Coalition against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of
Children Online was established in 2009 and consists of some of the major online payment
providers but with fewer banks. Other regions have also developed their own versions, the
latest being the Asia Pacific Financial Coalition. Each region should establish a coalition to
make it increasingly difficult for people to exploit children for financial benefit.
(b)
Guidelines for industry
79.
The guidelines for industry on child online protection created by the International
Telecommunication Union and UNICEF65 assist industry in understanding how to act in a
corporately responsible way. They develop five key areas for protecting and promoting
human rights: (a) integrating child rights considerations into all corporate policies and
management processes; (b) developing standard processes to handle child sexual abuse
material; (c) creating a safer and age-appropriate online environment; (d) educating
children, parents and teachers about children’s safety and their responsible use of
information and communication technologies; and (e) promoting digital technology as a
mode for increasing civic engagement. The guidelines are important in that they recognize
the power that industry has over the consumer, both adult and child. The Internet industry is
uniquely placed to get messages across to children and parents, but also to act as a conduit
for reporting suspicions and blocking inappropriate material.
80.
Industry has the potential to reinforce key Internet safety messages but also to
develop new methods of keeping children safe. Good examples of this include Netclean, 66 a
Swedish company that has developed new ways of filtering and blocking harmful content,
including within offices and hotels. 67 Those means could be used not only to prevent the
downloading of child pornography but also to detect those who are seeking to solicit child
63
64
65
66
67
Financial Coalition against Child Pornography, “Backgrounder”. Available from
www.icmec.org/en_X1/pdf/FCACPBackgrounder1-13.pdf.
Ibid.
Available from www.itu.int/en/cop/Documents/bD_Broch_INDUSTRY_0909.pdf.
For more information, see https://www.netclean.com/.
See https://www.netclean.com/en/proactive/hotel-wi-fi/overview/.
19
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents