Sep 14 2021

Safer is a commercial product and service, built by Thorn, a technology non-profit dedicated to eliminating child sexual abuse from the internet.

Thorn’s work with the technology industry is designed to ensure the best tools and resources are available for content-hosting platforms to quickly identify, remove, and report child sexual abuse material (CSAM) at scale. As a commercial product, Safer is built with flexibility and scalability in mind to support a wide variety of platforms seeking to augment or improve their CSAM detection techniques.

Through commercial agreements, the costs paid by Safer customers are applied to product usage, ongoing maintenance, and research and development to ensure scalability to address CSAM in an ever-changing digital environment. As a result, no Thorn employees are financially incentivized in the pursuit to grow Safer’s customer base.

General criteria for determining Safer partnerships

Thorn’s goal is to eliminate CSAM from the internet. From what we know, CSAM is platform-agnostic and requires a proactive, technology-led approach. We will engage in dialogue with any company that comes to us interested in using Safer to better protect their platform.

As a non-profit with a commercial product, who Thorn works with and why is grounded in the following principles that support Thorn’s core mission:

• Companies must adhere to their national reporting mandates and report to the appropriate clearinghouse for CSAM. In the United States, it is the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). Thorn provides post-detection tools to report to NCMEC but does not report on a company’s behalf.
• Thorn may suspend or terminate access to Safer if it is not used in accordance with the parties’ contractual terms.
• Companies’ access to Safer requires adherence to standard confidentiality obligations and companies may not publicly use Thorn’s name or logo for any marketing, promotional, or endorsement purposes without Thorn’s prior written approval.
• In order to reach our goal of eliminating CSAM from the internet, whenever and wherever possible, we work with referral partners to help provide scholarship and discounting programs to make Safer accessible to as many platforms as possible.
• Partnerships to provide scholarships and discounts for Safer are critical to increasing access to technology and resources to keep platforms and children safe. These opportunities will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and outside of a standard Safer agreement.
• Thorn does not accept quid pro quo financial contributions in exchange for use of Safer. Commercial agreements for Safer are unaffiliated with fundraising efforts and must adhere to the pricing schedule and terms set by Thorn.

To learn more about Safer click here. To learn more about Thorn, click here.