Panelists for the Industry Innovations: How Tech is Fighting CSAM discussion, from left to right: Kay Chau, Moderator from Tech Coalition, Liz Thomas from Microsoft, Smrithi Ramesh from Cloudflare, and Erlina Chia from TikTok.


Today in Singapore, the Tech Coalition convened a multi-stakeholder briefing focused on tools, strategies, and innovations to combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA). More than 85 child safety experts, policymakers, law enforcement officials, and industry representatives joined the event to discuss key trends across the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region and to explore collaborative approaches to prevention, mitigation, and detection.

The event highlighted critical regional challenges and priorities around online child safety, including cross-border collaboration and risks associated with generative AI. Several Tech Coalition member companies also shared advancements in tackling OCSEA.

Participants came together from 16 countries, including representatives from 25 tech companies. Attendees also included ECPAT Taiwan, the Singapore Police Force, UNICEF, the ASEAN Secretariat, Office of the Australian eSafety Commissioner, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children, Child Rights Coalition Asia, and government representatives from Cambodia, Singapore, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Taipei.

Thank you to Amazon for hosting us at their Singapore office, to Google and Meta for co-chairing the planning group, and to Amazon, Cantina, Cloudflare, Microsoft, Roblox, Spotify, and TikTok for participating in the working group.


Collaboration Drives a Safer Internet for Children 

This meeting is part of a series of multi-stakeholder briefings that the Tech Coalition has previously hosted in Washington, D.C., London, and Brussels. Experts across sectors are brought together for focused, action-oriented discussions to build a shared understanding of how industry, policymakers, and civil society can work together effectively to address OCSEA. These convenings have already led to several concrete outcomes.


APAC Industry Briefing Outcomes

Building on these efforts, the Tech Coalition is announcing several new initiatives that will support and amplify industry efforts to protect children online, with a focus on prevalent trends and needs identified in APAC.

  1. Advancing Technology Solutions for OCSEA Detection
    1. Enhancing live-streaming risk detection: The Tech Coalition is working with a member company to test a proof of concept for detecting and responding to OCSEA in live-streaming environments. This pilot will use metadata signals, such as session characteristics and the use of anonymization services, to generate a risk score that indicates the likelihood of OCSEA occurring within a given livestream session for further investigation by child safety teams. Having begun development last year, testing and evaluation will take place this spring to assess feasibility for broader industry adoption.
    2. Improving non-English grooming detection: A longstanding challenge in child safety has been the lack of grooming detection tools for languages beyond English. To address this, the Tech Coalition has partnered with an APAC-based member company to develop a Korean- and English-language classifier capable of detecting grooming-like behaviors in text, such as discussions of sexual content or statements that indicate the presence of an adult and a minor. Leveraging in-house datasets, both models are currently in alpha testing, with aims to expand testing and broader application among industry once accuracy is refined.
  2. Expanding Knowledge-Sharing in APAC
    1. Webinar on OCSEA trends in APAC: In response to briefing discussions, the Tech Coalition will host a webinar later this year featuring APAC-based researchers to share emerging findings and insights on regional OCSEA risks, including the impact of generative AI.
    2. A series of webinars on law enforcement records requests: Another briefing-identified need was greater clarity around how to seek records from industry members. These webinars will provide law enforcement a more contextualized overview of records requests to tech companies, including what type of information to include and how members receive and process requests. 
  3. Supporting Tech Coalition Members to Turn Insights into Action
    1. Guidance for reporting APAC-related CSAM: This resource will provide members a high-level overview of the type of information to include to increase the actionability of reports to law enforcement, helping inform members’ varied approaches to in-region reporting.
    2. Considerations for in-region stakeholder engagement: To support members’ efforts in the region, this will provide information on opportunities and proven approaches for engagement, as well as strong cooperation on responding to OSCEA in APAC.
    3. New knowledge-sharing group on livestreaming: Launching in the coming months, this member-exclusive group will facilitate discussions on tackling livestreaming child sexual abuse material.

The Tech Coalition remains committed to supporting industry efforts worldwide to combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse. By building on the insights and recommendations from this event, we will continue to develop resources, foster collaboration, and expand opportunities for tangible progress across the tech industry toward a safer internet for children.