The Home Office last Friday announced that the government is to set up a ‘Centre for Child Protection on the Internet’. The Home Office press release detailing the project explains that the Centre’s aim will be ‘to reduce the harm caused to children, families and societies by child abuse facilitated through the internet‘. The Centre will tackle every aspect of the ever-growing problem of online child abuse, from the ‘grooming’ of children via chat rooms and instant messaging, to the distribution of child pornography and other abusive material. The Centre is supported by members of the Internet Task Force, making the project a real concerted effort: it is not only the police and government behind the project, but also child welfare groups.

The Centre’s proposed duties include providing support to victims and their families and advice to local agencies, active investigation of ‘high priority targets’, and managing the national database of child abuse images (the imaginatively titled ‘Childbase’). It will also provide a ’single 24/7 point of contact’ for anyone to report suspected abuse. This last service may raise some suspicions; a single point of contact to shop paedophiles sounds like every News of the World reader’s dream come true. Hopefully the public promotion of the service will also educate users in how to use it appropriately.

Though it has been announced today, the agency will only come into operation in April 2006, when it will be attached to the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). SOCA itself will only come into being at that time; its creation is subject to the passing of the Serious Organised Crime and Police bill. If that bill is not passed, there will be no Centre. The Home Office clearly wishes to act in the best issues of children and parents, and deal with the serious problem of child abuse online at a national level. The announcement of the Centre, though, has the air of a PR exercise rushed out of the door prior to some major political event.