Preventing and Reducing Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) use through On-device Technology (PROTECH)

Online child sexual abuse is one of the most important issues of today. An
example of online child sexual abuse is viewing and sharing child sexual abuse
material (CSAM). When this material is distributed online, children are
re-victimized each time the material is viewed and this has a great impact as
the sharing never ends. The scale and demand of CSAM have reached unprecedented
levels (Europol, 2020; IWF, 2020, 2021). The enormous scale and growing demand
for CSAM, the increasing opportunities for individuals to hide their activities
via end-to-end encryption, and the limited capacity of countries to pursue
these offenses calls for an early evidence-based intervention tool for
individuals interested in CSAM for long-term prevention.

Widespread preventative treatment for offenders of CSAM and individuals
interested in CSAM is difficult to attain. While a lot of Member States have
some form of intervention program for convicted offenders, their availability
and effectiveness vary widely. These programs range from short-term therapy and
long-term psychotherapy to medical interventions. For individuals who have not
been convicted of an offense, the Offlimits helpline provides anonymous phone
support and advice to individuals struggling with inappropriate thoughts and
concerns about sexually abusing minors. Although this helpline is very helpful
in providing support, individuals still report that they are unable to control
their CSAM use, or if they can stop viewing CSAM, they are struggling to
maintain it (Insoll et al., 2021). When asked what would help them to stop,
many mention restricting or reducing CSAM access. When one considers that CSAM
might be the precursor to contact offending, the value of providing individuals
with a technological solution to voluntarily self-manage their access to CSAM
to reduce contact offending becomes more compelling than ever. To date however,
no such solution exists.

The aim of the current study is to implement and evaluate a user-centered
prevention tool to increase effective self-management of CSAM across the EU.
This is a two-year project in five countries: The Netherlands, Belgium,
Germany, Ireland and United Kingdom. This ethical proposal will only be for the
Netherlands and the study is structured in two phases:
(1) The first phase is the pilot phase implementing the tool in real-life
settings.
(2) During the second phase a blueprint will be developed for maximizing the
reach and impact of safety tech for offender prevention within the EU.

The first objective is to test whether the tool is promising for individuals to
support them in managing their problematic use of CSAM.
The second objective is to develop a blueprint to maximize the reach and impact
of safety technology for preventing offenders within the EU.

The study design consists of two phases. The first phase is the pilot phase in
which the tool will be implemented in real-life settings. In the second phase a
blueprint will be developed to maximize the reach and impact of safety tech for
offender prevention within the EU.

The participants will be randomly allocated to either the intervention group
(with Salus) or the control group (without Salus). Salus will be installed on
the devices, such as phones and computers, of the intervention group
participants over a period of six months. During this period, Salus will
monitor the viewing of Internet based images and videos in real-time and will
determine whether these images or videos contain CSAM related data. If this is
the case, Salus will send a warning to the person who wants to search for this
material and Salus can immediately block the content. With this app it will be
tested whether it has the potential to help individuals self-manage their CSAM
use and hopefully stop it.

Possible burden and risks of the study for the participants include the alerts
they might receive when they want to view CSAM. When Salus is installed on the
devices of participants and Salus detects images or videos that contain CSAM,
these participants will receive an alert and this content might be blocked.
This can be confrontational for the participants. To minimize this burden and
risk as much as possible, the participants are informed about the alerts and
the rationale of the study. In additional, we inform them that participation is
on voluntary basis. They choose to voluntarily participate in this study and
they know what to expect. They can withdraw from the study at any time without
giving any reason. If the participants want to talk about the alerts or have
any questions or doubts about the study, they can always contact the research
team. We expect participants to benefit from the tool, as they will be able to
self-manage their CSAM use, and this will hopefully decrease their CSAM use.