The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has warned that there is nothing to prevent child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) being sent via encrypted platforms such as WhatsApp.

Following the news that BBC presenter Huw Edwards had viewed indecent material, the charity has warned that CSAM could still spread “today, tomorrow and the next day” via the Meta-owned messaging service.

The material was sent to Edwards via WhatsApp's end-to-end encrypted messaging service, which the IWF said cannot be seen or blocked by the company.

Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips and the National Crime Agency have joined the IWF in calling on Meta to do more to stop images and videos of child sexual abuse from being shared on its platforms.

“Child sexual abuse is a vile crime that inflicts long lasting trauma on victims,” Phillips said. “UK law is crystal clear – the creation, possession and distribution of child sexual abuse images is illegal and we continue to invest in law enforcement agencies to support their efforts in identifying offenders and safeguarding children.”

According to the IWF, Meta claims its current methods of detecting and blocking child sexual abuse imagery are incompatible with end-to-end encryption, which the company says it uses to help keep people, including children, safe.

National Technology News has reached out to Meta for comment.

Dan Sexton, chief technology officer at the IWF said that this is a “solvable problem as there are effective methods to detect harmful images, but WhatsApp had effectivity switched these off without putting alternative measures in place.

"I’d like to ask this question. How is Meta going to prevent this from happening again? What is stopping those images being shared again on that service today, tomorrow, and the next day?” Sexton added.

“Right now, there is nothing stopping those exact images and videos of those children being shared on that platform, even though we know about it, and they know about it, and the police know about it. The mechanisms are not there. That’s what I’d like to see changed.”

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