Paedophiles to lose credit cards

Credit and debit providers can withdraw cards from paedophiles who use them to purchase child abuse images online, following a three-year campaign by children's charities.

The attempt to cut off the demand for child pornography coincides with a report which shows that sites including images of abuse are increasingly based overseas, making it harder for British authorities to tackle the providers.

The Internet Watch Foundation has found the percentage of total reported child abuse images hosted in the UK has fallen from 18% a decade ago to 0.2% last year. Most of the content reported to the organisation is now hosted in the US.

"It's excellent news that the UK has almost eradicated this material from our internet service providers," said Sarah Robertson, a spokeswoman for the IWF. "The issue now is that people in the UK are viewing child pornography on servers abroad. The new credit card legislation is one of the few remaining ways the UK can combat internet paedophiles."

Under an amendment to the Data Protection Act, approved by the Lords on Tuesday night, credit card companies can use information about criminal convictions and cautions to cancel cards. Previously, while card issuers were able to give police the details of customers who had bought images of abuse, they were legally barred from closing accounts.

"This all started when 7,200 UK citizens were caught under Operation Ore using payment cards to access child abuse images from a site in Texas," said Judy Mallaber, the Labour MP who has helped to lead the campaign. "You could have your credit card taken away if you did not pay your bills but not if you had been caught downloading child pornography using the card," she said.