EFFORTS by the internet industry to eradicate child porn may prove "woefully insufficient", MPs have warned as they called for beefed-up action to improve online safety.

Members of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) have funded the recruitment of seven extra full-time staff to track down illegal images.

The move last year to more than double the existing staff came amid criticism of internet firms for inaction following a number of child murder cases with porn connections. Prime Minister David Cameron has spearheaded demands they develop better protections to prevent such abuse and to prevent children accessing legal adult material.

The Culture, Media and Sport select committee welcomed the commitment by the IWF to embark on proactive searching for abuse. But it said it was "concerned that seven additional staff might prove woefully insufficient to achieve substantial progress towards what must be an important intermediate goal: the eradication of child abuse images from the open internet".

It was one of the conclusions of a review of internet security by the committee, which also questioned whether the police had sufficient resources.