🔏
Sensitivity and access procedures
  • Access to personal and sensitive information: Internal Procedural Manual
  • Sensitivity Criteria
    • Overview of workflow
    • 2.1 Due diligence
    • 2.2 Personal data
    • 2.3 Business sensitivity
      • 2.3.1 Identifying business sensitive information
      • 2.3.2 Determining the appropriate access status
    • 2.4 Cultural sensitivity
    • 2.5 Distressing or offensive content
    • 2.6 Child sexual abuse material
      • 2.6.1 What is child sexual abuse material?
        • 2.6.1.1 What is an 'indecent' image?
      • 2.6.2 Who are we safeguarding?
      • 2.6.3 Relevant legislation
        • 2.6.3.1 Wellcome's position
      • 2.6.4 Staff welfare and safeguarding
      • 2.6.5 How to flag CSAM or potential CSAM
      • 2.6.6 Cataloguing
      • 2.6.7 Requests for access
        • 2.6.7.1 Facilitation of onsite access
      • 2.6.8 Digitisation and take down
  • Managing Access
    • Undertaking sensitivity review
      • Further guidance on the personal data flowchart
      • Restriction and closure periods
      • Redaction
      • Catalogue titles and descriptions
      • CALM fields
        • Assigning OrderingCodes
      • Sierra fields
        • Sierra Access Status+Conditions
      • Documenting decisions
      • Packaging physical material
    • Access Status Options
      • Safeguarded access
      • Access conditions statements
      • Changes to the access status
        • Temporary changes to the access status
        • Permanent changes to the access status
        • January openings
      • Missing & Withdrawn Items
    • Access Exceptions
    • Access to Uncatalogued Collections
    • Access to NHS Records
  • Access and Copying Conditions
    • Access and copying conditions
  • Online Access
    • Assessment for online access
  • Access Appeals
    • Access appeals process
  • Collections, Access, Diversity and Inclusion forum (CADI)
    • About the forum
    • Resources
    • Topics
      • Child Sexual Abuse Material
      • Working with communities and academics
      • Content Advisories
      • By Appointment
      • Participatory cataloguing
Powered by GitBook
On this page

Was this helpful?

Edit on GitHub
  1. Sensitivity Criteria
  2. 2.6 Child sexual abuse material
  3. 2.6.1 What is child sexual abuse material?

2.6.1.1 What is an 'indecent' image?

Previous2.6.1 What is child sexual abuse material?Next2.6.2 Who are we safeguarding?

Last updated 1 year ago

Was this helpful?

The preferred term to use is child sexual abuse material (CSAM). However, the term 'indecent images' continues to be used and defined in the current relevant legislation. The term 'indecent images' is used here only for the purpose of stating its legal definition. The material should still be considered to be, and referred to as, CSAM.

See this for further information on the law as it applies to child sexual abuse material.

Indecent images are prohibited by law. Deciding what is considered to be 'indecent' is determined by the courts on a case-by-case basis.

Child nudity alone does not necessarily mean an image is indecent.

Indecent images include:

  • Sexually explicit images of penetrative or non-penetrative activity (with or without the presence of an adult).

  • Images of erotic or sexually explicit posing.

  • Posed or staged images where the focus is on the nudity of the child, as opposed to an image containing nudity but placed within a wider cultural or societal context.

As well as the explicit content, an image can also be seen as indecent where the creator has abused a position of power. Acts in the presence of a child also count as CSAM where obscene, grossly offensive or there is an abuse of power e.g. a child being forced to watch.

The circumstances in which the image came to be taken or made, or the motive of the person taking or making it, are not relevant. It is whether the image itself is indecent that is relevant. It is therefore possible for indecent images to be self-produced.

What if it is already published?

It does not matter if the image is already in the public domain or has been published or otherwise distributed.

When looking at material that could fall under the definition of CSAM, and where it is already in the public domain, ask the question:

Could it be legally distributed or published today?

Where images of child nudity appear within a published text i.e., a published book, we need to consider the context and language of the book to determine whether this changes the intention and/or interpretation of the image.

page on relevant legislation