Canada's largest internet service providers last week joined forces with Cybertip.ca, a group fighting child sexual exploitation, to battle online child abuse.

The new initiative, named 'Project Cleanfeed Canada', is backed by the Canadian Coalition Against Internet Child Exploitation (C-CAICE) and is intended to make the internet safer for Canadians and their families. It aims to reduce Canadians’ chances of accidentally coming across images of child sexual exploitation on the internet.

So far the participating ISPs include Bell Aliant, Bell Canada, MTS Allstream, Rogers, SaskTel, Shaw Communications, TELUS and Videotron. The firms will install filters to protect their customers from inadvertently visiting foreign websites that contain images of children being sexually abused.

Cybertip.ca will establish a list of the sites to be filtered that will be incorporated automatically into the ISPs' filters. The ISPs will have no involvement in compiling the Cybertip.ca list.

“Those of us active in fighting online child sexual exploitation understand that we need to fight this battle on many fronts and at many levels,” said Lianna McDonald, executive director of Cybertip.ca and chair of the C-CAICE Steering Committee.

“Project Cleanfeed Canada will make an important contribution to child protection by reducing accidental access by Canadians to child abuse images online.”

“Law enforcement agencies welcome this initiative to stop access to illegal material that during its production victimises children," said superintendent Earla-Kim McColl, officer in charge of the Ottawa-based National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre, which is also a C-CAICE member.