INHOPE (International Association of Internet Hotlines) is an international nonprofit organization headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands, that coordinates a global network of national hotlines dealing with reports of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online. It was founded on November 23, 1999 by eight European hotlines, with financial support from the European Commission's Safer Internet Action Plan. INHOPE does not run a public reporting service itself. It sets operational standards, provides training and quality assurance, and maintains the cross-border technical infrastructure that member hotlines rely on. As of 2025, the network covers 57 member hotlines across 52 countries on six continents.
Background and founding By the mid-1990s, child sexual abuse material had shifted from relatively obscure offline exchange networks into a medium accessible to anyone with a computer and a modem. That shift made the problem more visible to regular people using the internet and put pressure on the internet industry, governments, and law enforcement to respond.
The first internet hotline dedicated to receiving CSAM reports opened in the Netherlands in 1995 as Meldpunt Kinderporno with backing from the police and the internet industry. Similar initiatives emerged quickly elsewhere: Norway, Belgium, and the United Kingdom all set up hotlines before the end of 1996, with Austria, Ireland, Finland, Spain, and France introducing similar programs shortly after. In Germany, several parallel efforts developed between 1995 and 1996, partly driven by high-profile prosecutions and parliamentary debate. In the United States, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children launched its CyberTipline in March 1998.
Childnet International, a London-based nonprofit founded in 1995 to promote children's interests in global communications, had been watching these national initiatives develop in parallel and argued for international coordination among them. In 1997, Childnet secured funding under the European Commission's Daphne programme to create a forum where the hotlines could meet and share experience. That body, known as the INHOPE Forum, brought together European hotlines to exchange procedural knowledge and discuss how cross-border report sharing might work.
Eight organizations from Austria, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Germany converted the Forum into a formal association, registered in the Netherlands on November 23, 1999. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children joined shortly afterward as an associate member. The name INHOPE derives from International Hotline Operators of Europe, though the organization has expanded beyond Europe since.
Structure and governance INHOPE is registered in the Netherlands and governed by a board elected by the member hotlines. The board includes a President, Vice-President, Treasurer, and additional member representatives, each on two-year terms, and is registered with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce (KvK Amsterdam) under number 34124277.
INHOPE sets minimum operational standards through a Code of Practice that all member hotlines must follow, conducts hotline reviews through a Quality Assurance Program, and supports cross-border collaboration through shared technology. Member hotlines are nationally run organizations like the Irish Internet Hotline that receive public reports of suspected CSAM, assess the content against their national law and INTERPOL's international criteria, and refer confirmed material to law enforcement and internet service providers for removal. The membership criteria trace directly to those developed by the INHOPE Forum and mandate that hotlines be publicly accessible and transparent, maintain consistent procedures, and have the support of government, industry, and law enforcement in their country
Member hotlines As of 2025, INHOPE has 57 member hotlines operating across 52 countries on six continents. The network includes hotlines in every European Union member state as well as countries in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania. Germany, Italy, and Hungary each have more than one member hotline; the Netherlands has two following the addition of the regulatory body ATKM in 2024. Countries without a dedicated national hotline can submit reports through Internet Watch Foundation reporting portals, though these territories are not counted as INHOPE members. Country Hotline Continent Year joined Albania Isigurt (CRCA) Europe 2021 Andorra Andorra Digital Europe 2025 Argentina Grooming Argentina South America 2023 Australia Cyber Report (eSafety Commissioner) Oceania 2016 Austria Stopline Europe 1999 (founding) Belgium Child Focus Europe 2002 Bosnia and Herzegovina International Forum of Solidarity – EMMAUS Europe 2011 Brazil SaferNet South America 2014 Bulgaria Safenet.bg Europe 2006 Cambodia APLE Asia 2019 Colombia Te Protejo South America 2016 Croatia CNZD Europe 2013 Cyprus CyberSafety Europe 2019 Czech Republic Stoponline.cz Europe 2018 Denmark Report It (AnmeldDet) Europe 2001 Estonia Vihjeliin Europe 2011 Finland Nettivihje Europe 2002 France Point de Contact Europe 1999 (founding) Germany eco Europe 1999 (founding) Germany FSM Europe 1999 (founding) Germany jugendschutz.net Europe 1999 (founding) Greece SafeLine Europe 2015 Hungary Biztonsagosinternet.hu Europe 2014 Hungary Internet Hotline (NMHH) Europe 2019 Iceland Barnaheill Europe 2001 Ireland Irish Internet Hotline Europe 1999 (founding) Italy Save the Children Italy Europe 2003 Italy Telefono Azzurro Europe 2006 Japan Internet Hotline Center Japan (Pole to Win) Asia 2024 Latvia DrossInternets Europe 2005 Lithuania Svarus Internetas Europe 2007 Luxembourg BEE SECURE Stopline Europe 2005 Malta Be Smart Online Europe 2013 Mexico Fundación PAS (Te Protejo México) North America 2022 Moldova La Strada Europe 2023 Netherlands Offlimits (EOKM) Europe 1999 (founding) Netherlands ATKM Europe 2024 New Zealand Netsafe Oceania 2009 Nigeria ACSAI Nigeria Africa 2024 Norway Kripos / NordVakt Europe 2001 Philippines ECPAT Philippines Asia 2022 Poland Dyżurnet.pl Europe 2005 Portugal Linha Internet Segura Europe 2007 Romania Ora de Net Europe 2006 Russia Friendly Runet Foundation Europe 2008 Serbia NetPatrola Europe 2022 Slovakia Ochran Ma Europe 2023 Slovenia Spletno Oko Europe 2006 South Africa Film and Publication Board Africa 2010 South Korea KCSC Asia 2008 Spain INCIBE Europe 2022 Sweden ECPAT Sweden Europe 2004 Taiwan Web547 (ECPAT Taiwan) Asia 1999 Thailand Thai Hotline Asia 2010 Turkey İhbar Web Europe/Asia 2007 Ukraine Magnolia Ukraine Europe 2023 United Kingdom Internet Watch Foundation Europe 1999 (founding) United States CyberTipline (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children) North America 1999 Zambia YOCUPA Zambia Africa 2025
Funding The European Commission has funded INHOPE since its founding, across successive programs: the Safer Internet Action Plan (1999 - 2004), the Safer Internet Plus program (2005 - 2008), the Connecting Europe Facility, and the Digital Europe Program. An independent evaluation of the Safer Internet Action Plan concluded that member hotlines were providing a useful and effective service but that most would not survive without public subsidy. INHOPE also receives funding from the End Violence Against Children fund (EVAC), the NEO Philanthropy Foundation, and corporate partners in the technology sector.
ICCAM The ICCAM platform ("I see Child Abuse Material") is the technical backbone of cross-border cooperation within the network. Developed by ZiuZ Forensics in 2014 with European Commission funding and later maintained by the s3 group, it gives hotlines a secure way to exchange CSAM reports across national jurisdictions, a practical necessity since material reported in one country is often hosted in another. Building a shared cross-border database had been discussed in the INHOPE Forum from its earliest meetings, but at the time it was seen as unlikely to be achievable in the short term given the legal and organizational differences between countries.
When a hotline analyst identifies illegal material at a reported URL, the URL is entered into ICCAM, which crawls the associated content. The analyst classifies each image or video as either baseline (internationally illegal under INTERPOL's criteria), nationally illegal, or not illegal. Baseline-classified content is made available to INTERPOL for transfer to its International Child Sexual Exploitation Image Database (ICSE Database), supporting victim identification and criminal investigations across borders.
In January 2023, INHOPE launched Project CPORT with INTERPOL and law enforcement from Norway, Belgium, Moldova, and France, to build a dedicated portal within ICCAM for investigators. By the end of 2024, CPORT was in use or being piloted in 15 countries.
Report Box, a complementary tool, was developed under the ESCAPE project with EVAC funding for organizations that want to begin taking CSAM reports but lack the infrastructure to build their own intake system.
Universal Classification Schema One challenge in international cooperation on CSAM is that countries define and categorize it differently. Legal definitions vary enough across jurisdictions that reports shared between hotlines or with law enforcement can be difficult to compare or act on consistently.
To address this, INHOPE developed the Universal Classification Schema (UCS), a standardized framework for categorizing CSAM that is intended to work across platforms, legal systems, and investigative workflows. The Schema was jointly developed by hotline analysts, law enforcement agencies, technology industry representatives, and policymakers, and is governed by an Expert Council that includes INTERPOL, Europol, the US Department of Homeland Security, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Queensland Police Service, and academic institutions including the University of Edinburgh.
Version 2 of the Schema was released in 2024 in four languages. Version 3, launched in June 2025, added refined category labels and richer metadata fields, and is being translated into all six UN languages. The Schema is also designed to feed into machine learning tools for automated CSAM detection: by giving analysts a consistent, machine-readable taxonomy for labeling content, it produces structured datasets that can be used to train detection models and, as of mid-2026, to support semi-automated categorization within ICCAM itself.
Notice and takedown When a hotline confirms that a URL contains CSAM, it sends a notice and take down order to the hosting provider or internet service provider requesting removal. This runs alongside the referral to law enforcement rather than replacing it. The exact procedure varies by country, depending on national legislation and the hotline's relationship with the local internet industry. A UNICEF reference guide for the private sector identifies INHOPE as the principal coordinating body providing hotline contacts and shared protocols to internet companies implementing CSAM removal procedures.
Reports received through the INHOPE network have led to major law enforcement operations. In 2003, the "Marcy" operation, triggered by hotline reports, resulted in investigations across 166 countries involving approximately 26,500 individuals.
Scale and trends The volume of reports processed by the INHOPE network has grown substantially over time. By 2006, European member hotlines were receiving close to 96,500 web-based reports per year, of which roughly 31 percent were passed to police. In 2021, the network processed nearly one million URLs featuring suspected material, 82 percent of which had not been seen before. In 2024, the network processed nearly 2.5 million suspected records, a 218 percent increase on the previous year; INHOPE attributed this partly to changing distribution methods.