There are a wide range of illegal activities which occur on the Internet. Illegal activity is divided into two different types:

• Criminally illegal activity which is investigated and prosecuted by Law Enforcement Agencies
• Civil illegal activity which can be prosecuted by a wide range of civilian bodies.

INHOPE focusses on responding to criminally illegal content and activity.

To achieve an understanding of what we can do to address this, it is worthwhile highlighting the different types of illegal content commonly found on the Internet. Many people find it difficult to imagine pornographic images of children, and therefore do not understand what is meant by “child pornography”. In many countries this is referred to as “child sexual abuse material” (CSAM) to reinforce that behind images of child pornography there is sexual abuse of real children.

Child pornography has different legal definitions in different countries.

The minimum defines child pornography as a picture that shows a person who is a child and engaged in or is depicted as being engaged in explicit sexual activity. One of the issues that causes disagreement is the age of consent to sexual relations which differs from country to country. In addition, legislation differs on whether possession of child pornography is a crime, whether an actual child had to be involved and whether articifially created images constitute child pornography.