Colombo banks to combat child porn on the net

Sri Lanka’s banking community, in a campaign initiated by the Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), has set up a Task Force in the war against child pornography on the Internet, the SCB said.

The campaign is supported by the Central Bank and the Sri Lanka Banks’ Association and is targeted at the use of Internet and credit cards to access child pornography.

“It is believed that the Internet accounts for 75% of commercial child pornography, spread over several hundred thousand sites. Credit Card transactions seem to make up the bulk of the business,” a SCB statement said.

It said banks can significantly intervene to curb this trade, with the support of major payment associations such as Master Card and Visa and Card Companies (American Express and Discover), by seeking and identifying offending websites and terminating the commercial relationship between the merchant acquiring Bank/Company and the merchant owning website.

It is estimated that 250 million copies of child pornography videos are circulated worldwide, mostly filmed in Philippines, Thailand and Sri Lanka. It has also been reported that in a raid carried out in Stockholm, 300 hours of child pornography videos were found, most of which were filmed in Sri Lanka, using Sri Lankan children, SCB said.

The main objective of the Banking Task Force appointed from various banks, will be to:
•Identify child pornography websites through banks e-commerce payment transactions and systems.
•Establish and operate on a common policy and process to cut the e-commerce loop that sustains these sites.
•Terminate relationships with merchants found to be engaged in business relating to child pornography.
•Raise awareness among card holders and merchants of the nature of the problem, and how they can help.

The statement said the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka has, in support of this initiative, issued a circular to all commercial banks drawing attention to clause 33 of the Financial Transactions Reporting Act (FTRA) No.6 of 2006 which lists offences against children as an unlawful activity in terms of the law.

The public has been urged to communicate with the Task Force with any useful information which may come into their possession so that appropriate action can be taken. The Standard Chartered Bank will be establishing a hotline for this purpose.