New laws to tackle online paedophiles who use the 'dark net'

David Cameron has committed to "shine a light" on the areas of the internet that are exploited by paedophiles.

Investigators will target the so-called 'Dark Net' where people share and store files that are not available through search engines.

There will also be new laws, including making it an offence to request explicit images, regardless of whether the images are actually received.

ITV News UK Editor Rohit Kachroo reports.

New technology is being developed which will help warn children when the person they are speaking to online is not who they claim to be, the Prime Minister has revealed.

Speaking at a summit today, David Cameron said the technology would monitor IP addresses and may even be able to analyse the language used when contacting children to determine whether they are the age they claim to be.

It would then warn the child if the person is suspected of lying about their age.

Schools, parents, children and the government all have to play a role in tackling the problem of how to stay safe online, the Prime Minister has said.

Asked whether the internet posed the "biggest threat" to children today, he also revealed he uses filters in his own home to help block inappropriate material.

The Prime Minister has warned people who browse child abuse images that what is illegal in the offline world is also illegal in the online world.

Speaking at a summit in London today, Mr Cameron added that new laws had been drawn up to ban 'paedophile training manuals', meaning anyone caught in possession of material which offers advice on carrying out child sex abuse, or concealing their online activity relating to such, will face jail.

The Prime Minister has declared a "global war" on paedophiles who use the internet to view and share graphic images of child sexual abuse.

In a summit today, David Cameron called child sexual exploitation one of the biggest crimes of the modern era, with abuse happening on an almost "industrial scale".

A total of 50 countries and 26 internet firms are signing up to a new global pledge to tackle the "dark, diverse and widespread" problem.

Among the measures announced is a global database of abuse imagery, to help the authorities scour the internet for images to help tackle the "appalling and evil trade".

Internet giant Google has developed pioneering new technology which identifies horrific videos of child sex abuse, and blocks it from being shared online.

Researchers behind the search engine will now share the algorithm with the wider industry as part of a global crackdown on online child sex abuse imagery.

At a major summit in London today, Microsoft, Google and Mozilla are also set to outline plans for browser-level restrictions to prevent people from accessing web addresses containing known child abuse material.

Meanwhile, they and other major online firms such Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo will use 'digital fingerprints' of child sex abuse images and videos, identified by the Internet Watch Foundation, to prevent them being shared on their services.

More than two million graphic images of child sexual abuse will be wiped from the internet as part of the latest drive to crack down on the "sickening and depraved" crime, the Prime Minister is expected to announce today.

A specialist taskforce run by the National Crime Agency and intelligence base GCHQ will be created to target the most sophisticated high-tech methods to try to stay under the radar while sharing horrific pictures and videos of abuse.

This includes an increasing number of people turning to the 'dark net' to hide their identities.

David Cameron has vowed the unit will hunt down abusers and paedophiles with the same rigour used in tackling suspected terrorists.