The comments were contained in its Annual Review for 2002 which
revealed that the IWF's targeting of newsgroups has resulted in
470,000 illegal images per year per ISP no longer being available.
ISPs had acted on IWF requests to cease hosting certain newsgroups
that frequently carried illegal images, or have names that would
indicate illegal activity.
The group claims that UK servers host less than 3% of all the
potentially illegal material referred to the foundation.
Referrals to the group take place through a hotline. The number
of complaints was up by 64%, amounting to 21,341 reports in total.
Of these, 50% were found to be potentially illegal, and information
was passed to the relevant enforcement agencies and service
providers.
Last year, this resulted in 35 arrests, including the arrest of
one person who was holding around 30,000 illegal images.
However, the IWF noted huge increases in potentially illegal
sites hosted abroad, particularly in Russia, which has seen an
increase this year from 286 to 706 such sites.
