Online Project Arachnid tool still getting results

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This article was published 29/01/2025 (427 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg-based online tool has led to millions of child sexual abuse images being removed from the internet since its launch in 2017, its creator says.

Action has been taken against nearly 50 million images and videos after the Project Arachnid platform found them online, the Winnipeg-based Canadian Centre for Child Protection said in a Wednesday news release. Removal notices have been issued to more than 1,500 online service providers in more than 100 countries hosting the material.

“The volume of this material is such that it can be easy to lose track of the fact that these aren’t just pictures or computer files. We have to remember these are recordings that memorialize some of the most traumatic and abusive moments of a child’s life,” the centre’s executive director, Lianna McDonald, said in the release.