We’re pleased to announce that Safer’s Reporting Service now includes the option to send reports to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

Since launching in 2019, Safer’s Reporting Service has enabled our customers to report child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC)’s CyberTipline. The addition of RCMP reporting is a major step forward toward reaching our goal of eliminating CSAM from the internet.

“The new RCMP feature represents the first expansion of Safer reporting beyond the U.S., but it certainly won’t be the last,” said John Starr, Thorn’s Vice President of Industry. “Child sexual abuse is a global issue – and this ability for Canadian companies using Safer to report instances of CSAM to authorities is a critical step toward ensuring all platforms have the capability to detect and respond to child sexual abuse material – no matter where they’re located.”

Safer helps tech companies protect their platforms and customers by providing tools for proactive CSAM detection. Safer’s new reporting capabilities enable Canadian tech companies to send reports to RCMP. In addition to sending reports, Safer’s Reporting Service includes secure storage to preserve reported content. The Reporting Service can be used with either Safer’s Review Tool or a company’s own content moderation tool.

In 2021, there was a 1,696% increase in reports facilitated by Safer, compared to 2020. More reports is actually a good thing as it’s an indication of the volume of content that we’re hashing and matching. Last year, we hashed more than 11 billion images and videos, and we’re on pace to find an estimated 1 million CSAM files for our customers in the next 12 months.

In 2021, NCMEC’s CyberTipline received more than 29.1 million reports from electronic service providers (ESPs) alone. These reports constitute the majority of reports received by NCMEC and show that content-hosting platforms are critical partners in addressing this issue.

By detecting CSAM at scale, our customers contribute to keeping children safe online and provide necessary intelligence to NCMEC, and now RCMP, that can have a life-saving impact and lead to the rescue of child victims.