CSAM (Child Abuse) Reporting Process

The article outlines the process for reporting child sexual abuse material (CSAM). It clarifies the limited role of a domain name registrar, such as Trustname, emphasizing that they are not responsible for website content. The process directs individuals to report CSAM to national authorities first and then potentially to the domain registrar.

Key Takeaways

• Definition and Sensitivity - CSAM refers to imagery or videos involving minors in sexual activities. We take such reports extremely seriously but cannot view or validate the material due to legal restrictions.
• Immediate Action - Individuals must report suspected CSAM directly to their national authorities or organizations like INHOPE, NCMEC, or the Internet Watch Foundation before contacting us.
• Reporting to Us or Domain Owners - Users may inform the domain owner using Whois details or submit a report through our Abuse Report Form, without providing any examples of the material.
• Handling Legal Orders - We process reports and cooperate with law enforcement only when valid court orders or subpoenas are issued from approved jurisdictions.
• Our Role and Limitations - We manage domain registrations but have no control over hosted content; investigations are handled exclusively through proper legal and law enforcement channels.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Key Takeaways
• Definition
• Your Action Plan
• Additional Complaint Requirements
• What Will Happen
• Please Keep In Mind
• Remember

Definition

Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) includes imagery or videos that show a person who is a minor and engaged in or is depicted as being engaged in sexual activity.

We take complaints of child abuse or sexual exploitation material very seriously, but we are unable to verify allegations of child abuse images because accessing such content may put the registrar in violation of applicable laws.

Your Action Plan

• Immediately report CSAM to the appropriate authority in your country. You can find out who that is on the INHOPE website. Note: Trustname cannot validate CSAM allegations. We are not even allowed to ask employees to confirm the reported presence of CSAM. When we receive allegations of CSAM, we report them to the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, Anmeldet, Jugendschutz, the Canadian Children's Aid Society, and/or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the United States or the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) in the UK, as appropriate and as required by law in your country.
• You may also file a report with the registrant of the domain name. Most photo forums and other sites do not want to harbor CSAM and will take swift action if they learn of illegal content on their sites. You can contact them using the information you find by performing a Whois lookup either on the Registrar’s website, or via a generic service; this may be a link to a contact form or it may be their email address. Look for a line that starts with "Registrant Email". If they are using our Whois Privacy Protection Service (WHOISPPS), you can use the contact privacy form. Note: We have no control over website content on domains registered with us or any of our registrars.
• If you are a law enforcement agency submitting a court order or subpoena to Trustname, you can submit it here and select Abuse Report Form - Court Order or Criminal or Civil Subpoena.

Additional Complaint Requirements

• DO NOT SEND examples to the registrar. 
• All concerns about child abuse or exploitation material must be sent to the appropriate national authority.

What Will Happen

Upon receipt of such a request via our Abuse Report Form, Trustname will :

1. Respond with a case number.
2. Investigate your complaint, including validating the order. Please note that we as a Registrar will only accept court orders issued by or domesticated in the courts of Estonia, Germany, Canada, or the United States.
3. We will add the site, category, date, and resolution of your complaint to our internal database. Your personal information is not recorded there.
4. We will inform the domain name registrant of the order against their domain so that they can object in the appropriate court of law or otherwise allow them appropriate due process.

Please Keep In Mind

• We cannot guarantee any particular outcome, but we will review your complaint and contact you only if necessary.
• Your complaint will be evaluated on its merits and addressed as appropriate.
• You will not receive any updates regarding the evaluation or outcome of the complaint. It is entirely at the discretion of the domain registrant whether or not to respond to you.
• We reserve the right to use your complaint to prove abuse to our customer, if necessary.
• Complaints are tracked by our team for the purpose of improving anti-abuse processes and mitigating threats.
• If you submit your report using the Abuse Report Form, you will not receive further notification of receipt for additional submissions from your email address within 24 hours.
• The support code to submit this type of abuse report is S7Q-CSAM-Y9W.

Remember

• Limited Role – Domain name Registrars, such as Trustname, only maintain the system of domain names (example.org) that uniquely identify websites. They are not responsible for the content of the sites to which those domain names point. This means that if you dislike a site or its content, you should first contact the domain owner, then the service that hosts the site (web hosting service), and, if necessary, your local law enforcement authorities. As a domain Registrar, we can only act on court orders issued by or domesticated in the courts of Estonia, Germany, Canada, or the United States.
• ICANN Compliance – According to the ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) and Estonian law, as a Registrar, we are not authorized to take independent action against a domain based on third-party allegations. The responsibility for content and activities related to a domain lies with its administrator. However, in accordance with our role as an accredited Registrar, we will take action against a domain administrator if we receive a valid court order or a request from an ICANN-recognized authority.
• Our responsibilities – As a Registrar include addressing issues such as Botnets, Malware, Pharming, Phishing, Spam, DNS security threats, and trademark infringement, as detailed by ICANN refer to. For more information and our recommended solutions to these issues, please take a look at the related articles on ICANN's website.