History
The Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) was founded in April 1985 as Child Find Manitoba following the disappearance and murder of 13‑year‑old Candace Derksen. Her mother, Wilma, started the organization with a handful of volunteers and the vision to provide the essential services her family did not have access to during and following Candace’s disappearance.
In 1999, after nearly 15 years of providing missing children services, staff recognized the growing threat of online sexual exploitation of children and the connection between children that went missing and an online encounter. Originally launched as a pilot initiative, Cybertip.ca was established in September 2002 as a centralized location for Canadians to report online child sexual exploitation, and to access education and prevention resources to help keep children safe online. Since then, our agency has grown into an international leader in child protection. Major milestones include:
- May 2004 The Government of Canada recognized and announced Cybertip.ca as Canada’s national tipline for the public reporting of online child sexual exploitation under the National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet.
- July 2004 Cybertip.ca met with the RCMP's National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre, the Department of Justice, and internet service providers to form the Canadian Coalition Against Internet Child Exploitation (CCAICE).
- Fall 2004 C3P’s first education program was introduced. Kids in the Know is a national, interactive, safety education program designed to empower children from kindergarten to high school in order to reduce their risk of victimization.
- May 2006 The organization changed its name from Child Find Manitoba to the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) to more accurately reflect its national role in the protection of children.
- November 2006 Cleanfeed Canada was launched. This initiative involves Cybertip.ca providing a URL list to participating ISPs who voluntarily block access to prepubescent child sexual abuse content hosted outside Canada.
- November 2007 Commit to Kids, a step‑by‑step plan to help organizations reduce the risk of child sexual abuse of children in their care, was developed. The program was piloted through 2009 and released to the public in 2010.
- Spring 2010 C3P took over operation of Child Find Ontario. A year later, C3P launched MissingKids.ca, a national missing children resource centre to support families in finding their missing child and provide educational materials to help prevent children from going missing.
- October 2012 The School and Family Approaches to Intervention and Prevention: Addressing Self/Peer Exploitation guide was launched in response to the growing issue of intimate image incidents reported to Cybertip.ca.
- July 2013 C3P issued the first Cybertip.ca Alert to inform the public of concerning technology trends and new resources designed to increase children’s personal safety.
- October 2013 C3P launched NeedHelpNow.ca for youth impacted by a sexual picture/video being shared by peers, providing them with practical steps to regain control over the situation.
- October 2014 C3P tabled its Digital Agenda for the Protection of Canada’s Most Vulnerable Victims at a roundtable discussion with the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, law enforcement officials, industry, and fellow advocates to strengthen the national resolve, commitment, and coordination in the fight against online child sexual exploitation.
- April 2015 C3P celebrated 30 years of protecting children. Joined by 500 guests from across Canada, we looked back on all that we’ve accomplished and recognized those who have assisted us along the way. The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, brought special remarks and we welcomed parliamentarians, funding partners, supporters, law enforcement officials and the many families whose stories have shaped our agency.
- January 2016 C3P released Child Sexual Abuse Images on the Internet: A Cybertip.ca Analysis based on the review of close to 152,000 reports, examining 43,762 unique images and videos classified as child sexual abuse material. At the same time, recognizing that for too long these victims had been seen but silenced, C3P launched a survey for the first generation of victims whose child sexual abuse material had been distributed online. Results of the survey were published in 2017.
- May 2016 C3P released its preliminary findings from the Abducted then Murdered Children: A Canadian Study.
- January 2017 C3P launched Project Arachnid — an automated platform that helps detect child sexual abuse material and reduce its online availability by issuing notices to service providers for removal. Since then, Project Arachnid has evolved into a multi‑tool platform, including the addition of Shield by Project Arachnid in 2019, a proactive tool industry can use to quickly detect known child sexual abuse material on their services.
- June 2018 C3P released the most comprehensive study of child sexual abuse by school personnel ever done in Canada. This data reveals the number and nature of sexual offences committed (or allegedly committed) against children by employees within K‑12 schools across Canada between 1997 and 2017.
- December 2019 Our agency released our framework How We Are Failing Children: Changing the Paradigm, an urgent call to action for governments, industry, and hotlines around the world that is grounded in the best interests of the child, and their right to dignity, privacy, and protection from harm.
- December 2020 C3P released a report that examined the availability of child sexual abuse material‑specific reporting mechanisms on 15 major platforms, along with presenting five recommendations for companies that allow user‑generated content on their service.
- June 2021 C3P released the Project Arachnid: Online availability of child sexual abuse material report, which provided unprecedented insight into the availability of CSAM and the role vast networks of lesser‑known technology companies play in facilitating the spread.
- April 2022 C3P released Reviewing the Enforcement of App Age Ratings in Apple’s App Store and Google Play, which led to many findings that raise significant concerns for the protection of children/youth online, and for families who use age ratings to gauge safety.
