Operation Artemis – a Victim Centered Approach to Tackling the Online Availability of Child Sexual Abuse Material
- May 14, 2025
Operation Artemis is a partnership effort, led by Child Rescue Coalition, which takes a victim centered approach to tackling the online availability of child sexual abuse material within Peer-to-Peer file sharing networks (P2P).
The project is working with a cohort of survivors of child sexual abuse whose exploitation was filmed, or photographed, and now proliferates as CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) online.
CRC’s Core Technology, is used in every police force in the UK as well as multiple countries globally to identify offenders in possession of CSAM within Peer-to-peer file sharing networks.
CRC Technology is now being used to identify offenders possessing ‘Artemis’ material, which includes some of the most heavily traded, and most severely categorised images across the P2P file sharing community. Using image hashes specifically linked to identified individuals as part of the Artemis cohort, we provide bespoke referrals to law enforcement agencies around the world.
For the first time this places the survivor at the heart of the response and enables a named victim to be associated with investigations that may have otherwise been seen as ‘victimless’.
Our referrals aim to identify contact offending whether non recent or current, and enable us to work with survivors via their legal representatives to seek financial remedy, reduce their imagery from P2P and other online spaces, whilst developing societal understanding of CSAM; its impact on offenders, society, and the risk of more children being abused to meet demand.
One year later, Operation Artemis is now active on every continent with cases under investigation in numerous locations across Africa, Europe, Central and South America, the Middle East, South East and Far East Asia. Through these partnerships, we have identified hundreds of cases and we are now working on the development and coordination of targeted multinational operations that puts survivors at the heart of the response.
Looking ahead, we are seeking opportunities to expand further into additional countries and continue collaborations through our ICAC (Internet Crimes Against Children) partners in the United States. CRC believes the reach and impact of Operation Artemis will only continue to grow in 2025 and beyond, and we remain committed to working with stakeholders and supporters to support the mission.
Thank you to all of our partners who have collaborated in Operation Artemis.