The number of Scots seeking help for viewing child abuse images has soared by 1,000 in a year prompting calls for web giants like Google and Facebook to do more to crackdown on those hosting illegal images.
New research from the Stop it Now! campaign, run by child protection charity the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, shows that across the UK 36,443 people contacted their scheme last year, up by 40 per cent from the 26,089 potential offenders who sought help in the previous 12 months.
However, Scotland had the largest rise in the UK - up 55 per cent from 1,614 to 2,508.
READ MORE: Online child sexual abusers targeted in new campaign
The National Crime Agency and the Scottish Conservatives called for more action from internet firms, and Police Scotland aided the charity's campaign.
DCI Sarah Taylor, of Police Scotland's National Child Abuse Investigation Unit, said: "Any form of online child sexual abuse is a serious criminal offence and we use the latest technologies to investigate and identify perpetrators of online child sexual abuse.
"We also recognise that prevention is key and we are currently running a campaign which speaks directly to perpetrators of online child sexual abuse.
"This is a hard-hitting campaign, running on our social media channels with the hashtag #NotMyFriend, which highlights the life-changing consequences for perpetrators, their families and the victims of such crimes."
DCI Taylor added: "We have worked with Stop It Now! on that campaign, allowing us to signpost people who are offending, or at risk of doing so, directly to the organisation's support services.
"While we continue to target perpetrators, we would also urge people to seek support to prevent their offending behaviour."
READ MORE: Online child sexual abusers targeted in new campaign
Google introduced a series of moves designed to make the internet safer including algorithmic changes to prevent images, videos and peer-to-peer links to child abuse material from appearing in search, which it says automatically checks against millions of queries.
Facebook says it is constantly looking for technological solutions to help tackle such challenges, inclding its use of Photo DNA, a system built by Microsoft and used across the technology industry.
Annie Wells MSP, Scottish Conservative equalities spokeswoman, said: "Anything that reduces the chances of people accessing child abuse images online is welcome.
“This organisation is clearly playing an important role in protecting children and dissuading people across Scotland and the UK from viewing child pornography.
“But we still need to see far more action from the internet platforms which allow these images to be viewed if a meaningful impact is ever to take place.”
An NCA spokesman said: "We need to ensure we are arresting the most determined highest harm offenders, who are harder to prevent from offending and less likely to seek help.
"Particularly in relation to the access to the ever increasing number of images uploaded to the internet, technology companies can assist by taking proactive measures that we believe will prevent offences from occurring in the first place.
"This approach includes a key role for technology companies in partnership with law enforcement to design out preventable offending.
"The NCA works closely with the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, both in the context of the strategic governance arrangements to tackle combat child sexual exploitation and abuse, and in respect of prevent activity."
READ MORE: Online child sexual abusers targeted in new campaign
Susie Hargreaves, from the Internet Watch Foundation, said: "While these are shocking figures, it is encouraging to see how many offenders out there are wanting to get help and support to stop looking at illegal online images of child sexual abuse."
A Google spokesman said: "We have a policy of zero tolerance on child abuse images on our platforms and have worked with the IWF for many years to remove illegal images."
A spokeswoman for Facebook said: “Child exploitative content has no place on Facebook and we use a combination of reports from our community as well as technology, such as PhotoDNA, to find and remove this material from Facebook.
"We take the safety of the people who use Facebook incredibly seriously and work with experts including the Internet Watch Foundation, CEOP and the UK Safer Internet Centre to continue to develop powerful tools to keep this illegal activity off Facebook.”
In 2017, 82,109 individual tech industry referrals were received by the NCA - this represents a 570 per cent increase since 2014 and a 700 per cent increase since the NCA commenced in 2013.
The NCA said this trend shows no sign of abating.
NCA also said coordinated activity by the NCA and UK police against online CSE is resulting in over 435 arrests and the safeguarding of nearly 700 children every month.
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