Latest news with #CoimisiunnaMean
Irish Independent
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Irish Independent
Media regulator has ‘full arsenal of tools' to tackle online child sex material
Ireland's media regulator says it has a 'full arsenal of tools' to target social media sites that publish and promote child sex abuse material and AI-generated sex abuse images. Coimisiun na Mean, which published a three-year strategy and a 2025 work programme on Thursday, said that sex abuse images appearing online are increasing in their prevalence. Niamh Hodnett, the coimisiun's online safety commissioner, said it holds social media platforms to account under the Online Safety Framework. Child sex abuse material is covered by the Digital Services Act (DSA).
The Irish Sun
24-04-2025
- Politics
- The Irish Sun
Disturbing AI-generated child sex abuse material ‘increasing in prevalence' as new media watchdog makes protection vow
IRELAND'S new media watchdog has warned about the rise of AI-generated child sex abuse images online. Coimisiun na Mean today launched its first three-year strategy as they vowed to protect children online and clamp down on disinformation. Advertisement The new State body will also roll out a media campaign to advise the public how to identify and report The Coimisiun was set up by the last The watchdog has this week published its first long-term plan as they look to make both online and broadcast media a safer place for children. Speaking at the launch of the plan today, Commissioner Niamh Hodnett issued a stark warning about an increase in child sex abuse images – in particular images created with Advertisement Read more on AI She said: 'There are two types we are concerned about, one is self-generated by 'The other we are concerned about is AI-generated child sex abuse material which has been made by artificial intelligence. 'Both are increasing in prevalence and we are very concerned about that.' Coimisiun na Mean has identified child protection as one of the key areas in their first three-year plan. Advertisement Most read in News Tech Live Blog In a section laying out how they will do this, the Commission say they will take on They will also run a campaign advising the public on how to make a complaint about illegal or harmful content they see online. Deepfakes more 'sophisticated' and dangerous than ever as AI expert warns of six upgrades that let them trick your eyes On disinformation, the Commission will team up with other EU regulators and State bodies, such as Executive Chair of Coimisiun na Mean, Jeremy Godfrey, said protecting young people and clamping down on disinformation were key objectives. Advertisement He said: 'Our six outcomes are ambitious and reflect our commitment to the regulation, support, and development of a media landscape that underpins fundamental rights and fosters an open, democratic and pluralistic society. 'As Ireland's media landscape evolves, we feel a unique responsibility to ensure that we shape the changing media environment to better serve Irish audiences, to uphold fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, and to protect people, especially children, from harm.'' The State body has identified six key areas it wants to focus on; children, democracy, trust, Irish culture, diversity and public safety. The Commission will promote the creation of Irish educational and cultural material specifically designed for children. Advertisement The Commission has also started preparing for the presidential election later this year where they will focus on protecting democracy and combatting disinformation in the campaign. 1 Ireland new media watchdog has warned about the rise of AI-generated child sex abuse images online
Irish Daily Mirror
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Irish Daily Mirror
Irish media regulator has 'arsenal of tools' to tackle online child sex material
Ireland's media regulator says it has a "full arsenal of tools" to target social media sites that publish and promote child sex abuse material and AI-generated sex abuse images. Coimisiun na Mean, which published a three-year strategy and a 2025 work programme on Thursday, said that sex abuse images appearing online are increasing in their prevalence. Niamh Hodnett, the coimisiun's online safety commissioner, said it holds social media platforms to account under the Online Safety Framework. Child sex abuse material is covered by the Digital Services Act (DSA). The coimisiun said that two of its priorities under its revised strategy include an election integrity strategy and protections for children at risk of online harm. It will soon develop a pilot programme for children at imminent risk of harm from online content, as well as develop an election integrity strategy across all media sources, and create educational materials relating to online hate. Speaking at its offices in south Dublin on Thursday, Ms Hodnett said that further online protection for children will begin in July this year when the final part of the Online Safety Code comes into effect. "This includes restricting harmful video content such as cyber-bullying, the promotion of eating or feeding disorders, the promotion of self-harm or suicide, as well as dangerous challenges," she said. "There are detailed provisions for age assurance and parental controls in relation to adult content. We'll continue to supervise platforms with respect to their compliance with the Online Safety framework. "The pilot programme is to inform our approach as to how we can best protect children online with our strategic outcome. "There was an expert report prepared in relation to individual complaints, and that advised waiting a year from when the Online Safety Code is in place before we look to putting in place an individual complaints framework and what that would look like, starting with children. "We hope, through this pilot programme, to address children who are in imminent danger and imminent harm in a systematic way. "We do it at the moment on an ad hoc basis. Indeed, even yesterday evening, my colleague John (Evans) was dealing with a priority one instance of a child in harm. "At the moment, when those types of contacts come into our contact centre, they're given priority one status, and we deal with them. But what that pilot scheme would do is to look at doing that in a systemic way, so that's something we're scoping out, and that will then inform our future work in relation to individual complaints." Ms Hodnett said they are becoming increasingly concerned about AI-generated child sex abuse material. "It's ever-increasing in its prevalence and there's two types we're concerned about. One is self-generated child sex abuse material, so that would be generated by children, often in their bedroom unbeknownst to their parents, for extortion or other purposes. "Then the other we're concerned about is AI-generated child sex abuse material. So this is being generated by artificial intelligence. Both are increasing in prevalence, and we're very concerned about that. "We are responsible for holding the platforms to account under the Online Safety Framework. Child sex abuse material is covered by the Digital Services Act, so in terms of our close supervision of the platforms, that's an area that we engage with them regularly on, and that we're very concerned about. "We have the full arsenal of tools within our playbook to be able to deal with that." She said the coimisiun recently met with OpenAI, in which they discussed concerns about online safety, including AI-generated sex abuse images. John Evans, the Digital Service Commissioner, said that OpenAI's user numbers are growing. He said: "As part of our supervision programme, we would have relationships with all of the platforms. So, say we have 15 of the 25 very large online platforms based in Ireland. So we have relationships with all of those. "Some of the others are getting bigger. So OpenAI, for example, its user numbers have been growing. "We pay attention to how they're moving, and how important they become in the ecosystem in terms of the user numbers, or the more risky they become as we perceive them because of the kind of content that they're able to provide. We will pay more and more closer attention to them. "It's a risk-based approach to supervision, there's something like 150 or so platforms out there. So we need a way of focusing our activity." Mr Evans said that when engaging with large tech firms, it would rather see a change in their behaviour rather than threatening large companies with enforcement measures or big fines. However, he said the coimisiun and the European Commission are using the "sharper tools" in their toolbox, including the investigations into some social media companies.
Belfast Telegraph
24-04-2025
- Business
- Belfast Telegraph
Child protection online and election integrity among media regulator priorities
Coimisiun na Mean published a three-year strategy and a 2025 work programme on Thursday, listing priority projects on online safety as well as media sector development and regulation. The coimisiun's executive chairman Jeremy Godfrey said: 'We are confident that this strategy will help us to create a media landscape that benefits all of society.' He added: 'As Ireland's media landscape evolves, we feel a unique responsibility to ensure that we shape the changing media environment to better serve Irish audiences, to uphold fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, and to protect people, especially children, from harm.' Among the priority projects are the development of a pilot programme for children at imminent risk of harm from online content, the development of an election integrity strategy across all media sources, and the creation of educational materials relating to online hate. The coimisiun will also prepare a new broadcasting services strategy and a revised media plurality policy, and continue the rollout of the Sound and Vision and journalism funding schemes, the latter of which includes local democracy and court reporting grants. Sound and Vision will support and promote the availability of new, 'culturally significant' audio and audiovisual content for Irish audiences, including in the Irish language, for transmission across national, regional, local and community broadcasting services. It will also open public consultation when developing the next iteration of the scheme and any other new funding initiatives. Subject to ministerial approval, it is aiming to develop digital transformation and news reporting and current affairs funding schemes. The 2025 work plan also says it will develop pilot gender, equality, diversity and inclusion (GEDI) standards for specified funding schemes. It said it will ensure that voices from diverse backgrounds, including women and minority groups, are represented and supported in the industry. In addition, the work plan includes a new five-year review and three-year look ahead for public service broadcasters RTE and TG4, on top of annual reviews of performance and public funding. The coimisiun will also consider the feasibility of a youth-focused Irish language radio station.
