Stopline hotline: Annual report 2024 presented

The hotline against sexual abuse material of minors and National Socialist content on the internet recorded a record number of reports. Thousands of illegal contents were removed.

According to the Stopline's annual report, a total of 89,908 reports were submitted in 2024. Unfortunately, the content of a large number of reports (65,980 reported cases in December 2024) could not be analyzed as it was not technically accessible on the reported websites (e.g. due to fee-based file hosting platforms).

Of the approximately 24,000 reports that could actually be processed, 11,262 were classified as illegal, which corresponds to a share of around 47%. This rate marks a new high in the number of correct reports since the hotline was founded 27 years ago. A significant proportion (11,169 cases) involved depictions of sexual abuse of minors. Illegal content in connection with National Socialist reactivation was identified in 93 cases, which represents a significant increase compared to the previous year with 22 accurate cases.

In 2024, a single case led to a statistical anomaly: 2,480 depictions of abuse, reported by the British IWF, originated from a platform hosted in Austria. Although it was in fact a single case, each image was counted individually, putting Austria at the top of the Stopline statistics. Thanks to close cooperation with providers and authorities, all content was quickly removed.

Stopline was founded in 1998 by the ISPA and is a report office recognized by the authorities against sexual abuse depictions of minors and National Socialist content on the Internet. Stopline is part of INHOPE, the worldwide network of hotlines founded in 1999 as part of the European Commission's Safer Internet Action Plan. Stopline is financially supported by funds from the EU Safer Internet Program and the Austrian domain registry nic.at.

May 2025

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