The number of people who are stopped when they try to find child abuse material on the Internet is increasing.
Last year, the telecom company Tele2 blocked nearly 5.6 million attempts in Sweden to view child abuse.
This means an increase of 38 percent.
In cooperation with the police and children’s rights organizations such as Ecpat, Swedish telecom operators are blocking attempts to view films and images of child abuse.
The number of blocks has risen sharply in recent years. Tele2, one of the larger operators, stopped a whopping 5,598,000 attempts in 2024. An increase of over one and a half million compared to the previous year.
– It’s terrible. I think like the vast majority of other people too. I think it is a social responsibility. That we should all be aware of what is happening online, says Jonas Lindström, Group Security Manager Tele2.
The increase may be due to this
The increase may be due to both more people searching for abuse material and the fact that police blocking lists have improved.
Already today, it would be technically possible for the operators to collect and hand over IP addresses from all the millions of attempts made to find child pornography.
But it is uncertain whether such massive surveillance would be legally permissible.
– We are not a police organisation. We are a telecom operator with social responsibility. But of course, if it were within the framework of the law, we could certainly do more. But this is also a dialogue with the police. And those who create the legislation. But of course, we could do more, says Jonas Lindström.