Claritas Provides Vital Security, Hosting and Hardware Solution to Facilitate Home Office Database
The Child Abuse Image Database (CAID) is the United Kingdom’s national system used by law enforcement to help fight the growing problem of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). The system helps police detect, flag and analyse illegal digital media images. This is a secure database that is used to help identify both victims and perpetrators of child exploitation and is used by every police force within the UK.
In 2012 the UK’s Operation Yewtree commenced. The operation started as an investigation by the Metropolitan Police Service into sexual abuse allegations, primarily on the abuse of children. It swiftly became a full criminal investigation that led to what is called the “Yewtree effect”, which is credited with an increase in the number of reported sex crimes in the UK.
In 2023/24 there were 188,893 sexual offences recorded by the police in England and Wales, a decrease when compared with the previous reporting year. Between 2002/03 and 2012/13 the number of sexual offences remained quite stable, but from 2013/14 onwards the number of sexual offences has risen dramatically.
Technologically savvy, CAID has the tools for facial, object, and relationship mapping. Through the use of CAID, UK Law Enforcement works collaboratively and is able to streamline forensic reports. The increase in child sexual offences is unfortunately a sign of the times. Technology is making it easier for abusers, not harder. According to CAID, the Internet makes it easier for abusers to connect with their victims, promotes a sense of anonymity, makes it easier for perpetrators to access and share images and video of abuse, and increases the possibility of sharing images being an international crime.
In the fight against such abuses, CAID is a necessary tool. It works by bringing together all of the images that both the police and the National Crime Agency encounter, and uses their unique identifiers (hashes) and metadata to improve investigations. CAID was created in conjunction with the police, industry partners, and other SMEs including Claritas Solutions in 2014. Since then, CAID has helped streamline investigations and prosecution of offenders. CAID hashes are used in forensic triage for early assessment to help police prioritise which of the suspect’s devices require further analysis.
Claritas has worked collaboratively with the Home Office and L3 project management teams since its conception, to facilitate, deploy, and execute the solution providing a helpdesk to triage calls from UK police forces with CAID related requests.
