In the fight against child exploitation a new weapon is to hand.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7347476.stmGoogle engineers have adapted a software programme to help track child sex predators and search for patterns in images of abuse on the web.
Google created the technology for the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). It was originally developed to block copyrighted videos on the company's YouTube division.
The programme uses pattern recognition to enable analysts to sort and identify files containing child sex abuse
The technology is an outgrowth of the anti-piracy software Google developed to helps its YouTube division ferret out videos of suspected of being posted without the agreement of copyright holders.
Whilst a subject such as this is not something I think we should overlook, the act of bringing it to the public attention leaves me feeling soiled and somehow tarnished as it publicises a subject so inhuman.
I was a little suprised that this was not already in place, however I believe we can welcome this excellent use of something I would normally find objectionable.
