2 days Ago By Adam Pearse
More than 1 million attempts to view child sexual abuse material online in New Zealand were blocked last year, a 13% drop in pageviews from the previous year. The statistic is revealed in the annual Digital Child Exploitation Transparency Report, which includes a stark warning about “disturbingly realistic” generative artificial child sexual exploitation material that is becoming more common. The report, authored by the Department of Internal Affairs, said 1,032,683 attempts nationally to access websites known to harbour child sex material were blocked by a web filter integrated across most New Zealand internet providers.
The highest number of attempts for one region, 294,336, took place in Auckland. Christchurch registered the second-highest (186,244), followed by Wellington (98,665), New Plymouth (25,196), Dunedin (23,175) and Palmerston North (18,537)..
