Over 3,000 sites with child porn blocked during pandemic –telco

Smart Communications blocked more than 3,000 websites as well as content showing child pornography amid the increasing reports of online sexual exploitation since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a company official said during a Monday forum.

Smart Vice President for Legal and Regulatory Affairs Roy Ibay said the company was aware of the spike in online sexual exploitation of children.

“We have already blocked during the pandemic. We understand a lot of these activities really spike. We have blocked more than 3,000 of these sites already, and content,” said Ibay.

The Smart VP added that their cybersecurity operations group was engaged in malicious threat solutions that automatically block questionable sites and content.

Also, Smart has been coordinating with Internet Watch Foundation, International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), among others, to address the issue.

In February, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, who chairs the Senate Committee on Basic Education, Arts, and Culture, urged the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) and the Inter-Agency Council Against Child Pornography (IACACP) to sustain and boost its efforts against online child sexual exploitation.

Citing information from the IACAT, Gatchalian said online tips on alleged child exploitation had increased to 1.2 million in 2020, thrice as many as the 400,000 tips in 2019. — DVM, GMA News