The IWF is an EU and industry-funded body that works with ISPs, telcos, mobile operators, software providers, police and government to minimise the availability of illegal internet content, particularly child abuse images.
Its Internet Hotline can deal with reports of potentially illegal internet content, such as web sites and newsgroups that contain images of child abuse anywhere in the world, that contain adult material that potentially breaches the Obscene Publications Act in the UK, or that contain criminally racist material in the UK.
The total of 20,000 reports was up 9% on 2002, equating to 80 reports a day.
The IWF attributes the reduction in the quantity of potentially illegal content being hosted in the UK to the country's strong laws for tackling possession and distribution of child porn, the fact that members of the public make the effort to complain about sites, and the successful transfer of information by the IWF to the police. It also put the success down to "a very receptive and amenable ISP community who fund the IWF and take down potentially illegal content immediately they are advised of the problem."
The IWF's records show that 55% of child abuse content is hosted in the US. It pointed out that the US has no effective notice and take down system and said very few US ISPs have registered with the US equivalent of the IWF to try and deal with the problem of potentially illegal child abuse content.
In addition, it traced 23% of child abuse content to Russia, where it believes the laws are incompatible with UK legislation when defining potentially illegal child abuse content.
The IWF also revealed that reports of racial incitement found on-line had increased 101% over the past year, while illegal content found on newsgroups had dropped by 62%.