The OCHRÁŇMA.sk hotline serves to report potentially illegal or obviously inappropriate content and is intended for anyone who has encountered it on the Internet.
The aim of the hotline is to minimise and prevent the further display of potentially illegal and manifestly inappropriate content on the Internet, which relates in particular to child abuse, inappropriate child nudity, cyber grooming (when a person approaches a child or young person for sexual contact) or dissemination of CSAM (Child sexual abuse material) and CSE (Child sexual extortion) according to Criminal Code No. 300/2005 Zb.
A reporting mechanism called ReportBox and ICCAM is used to deal with individual incidents. Thanks to its functionalities, the systems allows to sort requests into different categories, then assign a type to each incident and then work with it.
Thanks to the memorandum concluded between OCHRÁŇ MA and the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family of the Slovak Republic, effective cooperation is ensured and communication is carried out through an agreed communication channel. As well as by the cooperation agreement with the Police Force of the Slovak Republic.
OCHRÁŇ MA (as a hotline) together with the participating partners National Coordination Centre, digiQ (as an organisation specialising in prevention and education) and MORE THAN NI(C)K (as a helpline) form the Slovak Safer Internet Centre.
The Slovak Safer Internet Centre is dedicated to improving children's online safety through a comprehensive and multifaceted approach. The project balances prevention, intervention and awareness-raising, relying on a robust system of management, evaluation and involvement of key partners. A number of organisations with experience in child protection, combating sexual abuse, monitoring and reporting inappropriate content as well as providing advice and support to children and young people are working together on the project (Nominate partners). The project also includes the coordination of national policies on online safety and child welfare. The project promotes international cooperation with other Safe Internet Centres and seeks continuous improvement by learning from other similar initiatives.
We thank our supporters Orange, Telekom, O2, ČSOB, Entrega, INTECH, Nootropy, Monkeymedia, BeOnMind and visibility for the opportunity to operate.
Memorandum between Ministry of Interior and Ministry of social affairs
When I started as an investigator in the Police Department in 2013, I would have never imagined that I would become an active specialist in the field of child pornography, child abuse, child exploitation and domestic violence during my career.
My work has taken me to interesting places, for example to Selm in Germany to train experts under the auspices of Europol. I met there, among others, Denton Howard, Executive Director of INHOPE. It is a global network fighting the spread of child sexual abuse on the internet in 46. countries of the world.
When I decided to voluntarily retire from the police force in 2021, I thought of Denton. I proposed to him that I would involve Slovakia in the hotline network under the auspices of INHOPE and he agreed. At the same time, I have also involved Slovakia in the network of EU Safer Internet Centres INSAFE.
The taboo topics of child pornography and pedophilia did not leave me indifferent even after I left the police. Those horrible and repulsive incidents are not easily forgotten. I wanted to keep fighting for children's rights and to protect them from sexual predators in the on-line space.. This is how the idea of founding the civil association PROTECT ME was born.
My effort was, and still is, to build an effective tool to reduce the impact of this criminal activity - to eliminate the already existing child pornography on-line, to prevent its further spread and to clean the Slovak Internet from pedophiles lurking on children.
JUDr. Roman Abrahám
