Naver Z Leads Child and Youth Protection with INHOPE, the International Internet Hotline Association

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Naver Z announced on the 1st that it has signed a partnership with INHOPE, the International Association of Internet Hotlines, which is leading efforts to protect children and adolescents.

Through this partnership, Naver Z and INHOPE plan to collaborate comprehensively to eradicate online child sexual exploitation materials by advancing monitoring technologies and establishing reporting hotlines.

INHOPE is an international network organization for the protection of children and adolescents online, operating 50 hotlines across 46 countries including Europe, the United States, Japan, and Thailand. In countries with established hotlines, anyone can anonymously report child sexual exploitation materials through INHOPE, and the reported content is investigated and removed by professional analysts.

INHOPE collaborates with law enforcement agencies, global NGOs, and tech companies to promote various projects aimed at preventing online child sexual crimes, including ▲improving response processes to exploitation materials and ▲innovating monitoring technologies. Official sponsoring partners of INHOPE include Google, Meta, TikTok, Interpol, and the Tech Coalition.

With this partnership with INHOPE, Naver Z plans to adopt technologies and policies that meet global standards and continue to participate in international efforts to eradicate child sexual exploitation materials.

Naver Z has consistently partnered with prominent global organizations such as ▲the Tech Coalition, a global alliance of companies fighting sexual exploitation materials ▲ConnectSafely, a global advisory organization for child and adolescent safety education ▲and TSPA (The Society of Professional Internet Safety Experts), a group of safety experts supporting global communities. In June, Naver Z also developed a ZEPETO guardian guide with ConnectSafely and announced it on the Safety Blog.

No Junyoung, head of the Safety Expert Team at Naver Z, stated, "ZEPETO, which gathers over 340 million users worldwide, has made various efforts to create a safe metaverse environment. Through this partnership with INHOPE, we will further advance various technologies and features to ensure that children and adolescents can enjoy ZEPETO in a safe environment."

Meanwhile, Naver Z is working to prevent the sharing of child sexual exploitation materials and protect ZEPETO users from sexual crimes within the metaverse. They have enhanced harmful content filtering technologies by applying ▲AI-based obscene content detection technology and ▲profanity filtering and sexual exploitation material detection technologies. Additionally, they continuously update platform guidelines such as the ‘Online Grooming Response Guidelines’ and the ‘ZEPETO Guide for Guardians,’ while embedding reporting functions on every ZEPETO app screen to help users immediately report inappropriate content.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.