The Role of Internet Service Providers in Cases of Child Pornography and Child Prostitution

Abstract

Over the last two decades, the victimization of children via the Internet and the protection of those children have become a major focus of attention for parents and the criminal justice system as a whole. When President Clinton signed the Protection of Children from Sexual Predators Act of 1998, new responsibilities to aid in the fight against child victimization were placed upon all US electronic communication services and remote computing service providers. Specifically, as stated in Title X (Sec. 604) of the Act, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must report to law enforcement any knowledge of facts or circumstances from which a violation of specified offenses involving child victimization or child pornography is apparent. This new level of responsibility has placed much media attention on the ISPs and their abilities to aid law enforcement in their efforts against child abuse. This study was an attempt to explore the partnership between ISPs and US law enforcement, and to identify the extent to which specific crimes of child pornography and child prostitution are reported to law enforcement by those service providers. Results of this study suggested that the majority of the law enforcement agencies utilized in this study did not report any cases of child abuse referred to them through ISPs and in those cases that were reported to law enforcement, the overwhelming majority were cases of child pornography.