Their aim is to minimise the availability of potentially illegal internet content, specifically:

• child abuse images hosted anywhere in the world
  
• criminally obscene content hosted in the UK
  
• incitement to racial hatred content hosted in the UK

They work in partnership with UK Government departments such as the Home Office and the Department of Trade and Industry to influence initiatives and programmes developed to combat online abuse. This dialogue goes beyond the UK and Europe, to ensure greater awareness of global issues and responsibilities.

They are funded by the EU and the UK internet industry including internet service providers (ISPs), mobile operators and manufacturers, content service providers (CSPs) and telecommunications & software companies.

Through the hotline reporting system, they help ISPs to combat abuse of their services through a ‘notice and take-down’ service by alerting them to any potentially illegal content on their systems and simultaneously inviting the police to investigate the publisher.

As a result, only 0.4% of potentially illegal content is apparently hosted in the UK, down from 18% in 1997.

As the number of people using the internet and the diversity of content available continues to grow, the mechanisms for dealing with illegal content must be better known and understood.

In partnership with many organisations, the Internet Watch Foundation strives to create continued awareness of the role and purpose of the IWF and aim to foster trust and reassurance in the internet for current and future users.

Please note that the terms "child pornography" or "child porn" can act to legitimise images which are not pornography. Rather, they are permanent records of children being sexually abused and as such should be referred to as child abuse images.