A collaboration of the EU and UK experts, funded by the European Commission, will develop a unique security technology tool that uses machine learning to detect child sexual abuse images and videos in real time.

Starting in March 2023, the two-year ProTech project will research, design and create an app to install on the devices of individuals at risk of accessing child sexual abuse content. This security application will monitor both network traffic and images on the user's screen. Once installed, unless child sexual abuse images are detected and blocked, the app will run silently and require no user interaction. It will prevent the re-victimisation of survivors of child sexual abuse, who will continue to suffer in the knowledge that others may still be able to view images and videos of them on the internet.