“Unless you get help through all of this ... basically from looking at what you’ve had, how your past has been and everything else ... you can’t do it on your own. And I feel like that ... the app is a part of the ... structure you put in place to enable you to stop offending and to basically become a better person…” – Protech pilot participant.

This episode discusses the pivotal pilot stage of the Protech project, about how it was rolled out in three sites across Europe, and about who the volunteers were who took part and tested innovative technology aimed at preventing the viewing of child sexual abuse images and videos.

We hear from Larissa Van Puyvelde, a criminologist and junior researcher at the University Forensic Centre at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and Chris Pummell, a child sexual abuse prevention manager at the Lucy Faithfull Foundation in the UK, both of whom are involved in the Protech project.

Crucially, we also get a first-person perspective from an anonymous participant who gives his thoughts on the project and the impact it has had.

This podcast speaks openly about child sexual abuse. Listener discretion is advised.

"We need technical interventions that can work at scale to prevent or make it harder for people to view and access websites and platforms that are carrying images and videos of child sexual abuse.” – Dan Sexton, Chief Technology Officer at the Internet Watch Foundation.

Episode 2 of the Protech podcast gives listeners an understanding of the machine-learning tech that is being employed in the project to place barriers in the way of those seeking to view child sexual abuse material on the internet.

It explores what went into the development of the innovative safety solution, discusses how the tech was trained to detect previously identified as well as unknown child sexual abuse imagery, and reveals how feedback from potential end users of the tool was pivotal in its design and ongoing development.

In the podcast, we hear from Jack Pursey, Co-Founder and Senior Product Manager at SafeToNet; Julia Nentzl, a Clinical & Forensic Psychologist and researcher at Charité Universite in Berlin, focusing on the prevention of child sexual abuse and exploitation; and Dan Sexton, Chief Technology Officer at the Internet Watch Foundation. All are members of the Protech project.

This podcast speaks openly about child sexual abuse. Listener discretion is advised.

This podcast speaks openly about child sexual abuse. Listener discretion is advised.

Child sexual abuse material is rampant on the internet and efforts to remove the imagery can seem like a drop in the ocean when faced with the sea of criminal content that is being actively viewed and distributed on the open web. This can be devastating for survivors, who are repeatedly victimised every time images of their abuse are shared online.

In Episode 1 of the Intervention podcast, we discuss how stopping people from viewing and distributing videos and images of child sexual abuse is critical as part of a holistic approach to tackling the issue. Working with volunteers who want to learn to stop their risky behaviour is a vital aspect of this intervention.

Listen to experts Vicky Young, Head of Stop it Now UK, the helpline for the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, and Minne De Boeck, a criminologist at the University Forensic Centre at Antwerp University Hospital (UZA), both members of the Protech consortium. We also hear from Rhiannon McDonald, Head of Advocacy at the Marie Collins Foundation for her vital insight into the survivor perspective.

Find out more at protechproject.eu or search 'Protech Project'. Funded by the EU.

This podcast speaks openly about child sexual abuse. Listener discretion is advised.

This podcast speaks openly about child sexual abuse. Listener discretion is advised.