Child Sexual Abuse: Project Arachnid
Developed by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P), Project Arachnid is an innovative tool to combat child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on the internet.
Launched in 2017, this victim-centred platform crawls the open web in search of images of CSAM. When CSAM or harmful‑abusive content is detected, a removal request is sent to the hosting provider. Project Arachnid processes thousands of images a second and is capable of detecting content at a pace that greatly exceeds traditional methods of identifying and addressing this material.
Since 2017, Project Arachnid's activities have led to seven million images and videos of CSAM being removed from 1,000+ electronic service providers spanning nearly 100 countries worldwide.
One of the most important outcomes of Project Arachnid is the psychological relief offered to CSAM survivors who have had no control over the distribution and ongoing sharing of their recorded sexual abuse. Every time their content is viewed survivors are re‑victimized. By curbing the public availability of this content, Project Arachnid helps break the cycle of abuse for survivors, and address the very real fear someone they know may come across an image of their abuse on the internet.
Additionally, the international data regarding CSAM held by Project Arachnid, and the insights this information can provide, is significant to the fight against online child exploitation. To learn more, visit the Research page.
Cleanfeed legacy
The URL list provided by Project Arachnid Shield builds off of the foundation of Cleanfeed Canada, created by the Canadian Coalition Against Internet Child Exploitation (CCAICE) in 2006. With the help of participating Canadian telecommunication companies, Cleanfeed blocked access to non-Canadian websites hosting child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Cybertip.ca provided a list of more than 32,000 unique URLsGo to footnote 1 hosting CSAM to internet service providers (ISPs) who voluntarily block access to prepubescent child sexual abuse content hosted outside Canada.
Participating ISPs include: Bell (BellMTS), Telus, Rogers, Shaw, SaskTel, Vidéotron, Eastlink and Aliant.
- 1 As of September 2017 ↩