PLDT and Smart Communications is urging for greater policy making that pushes telecommunication companies to evolve in order to combat prevailing online child sexual abuse and exploitation (OSAEC) in the country and prepare for the gradually surfacing artificial intelligence (AI)-generated child sexual abuse and exploitation materials (CSAEM) in the digital space. 

"Policies created must drive technology. Not only penalties, prosecution. We need a policy that can keep on improving our technologies to combat OSAEC," said PLDT and Smart Communications Chief Information and Security Officer Angel Redoble during the #CyberSmart Conversation: "Bata, bata, kami ang iyong kasangga" forum held last Nov. 20 in Makati City. 

Redoble noted that a handicap of the Philippines in terms of fighting OSAEC is "not recognizing that technology-wise we are not getting better versus the other parties." 

"In fact, our child protection platform is just a compliance to be able to block, but there is no policy that drives telcos or internet service providers (ISPs) to improve our technology year-on-year. What's happening now is the bad guys are upgrading faster than us. They're better at us at innovation. We are always the antidote, always acting late. Maybe we should reverse that and policy can help us," he added. 

As far as the telco's visibility, no cases of AI-generated CSAEM has been identified by their Child Protection Platform, he said. However, he emphasized that it is not a question of "if" but "when" it will arrive on Philippine shores. 

Through the Child Protection Platform, PLDT is able to block domains that contain CSAEM. From January to September this year, the company has blocked access to 13.3 billion domains, and 1.5 million access attempts to view OSAEC links and contents. 

However, Redoble said they are limited in their capability to fully eradicate CSAEM because it is just one part of the value chain in the anti-OSAEC campaign. Investigation, prosecution, and the courts also play major roles in the chain. 

Google Philippines - Government Affairs and Public Safety Head Yves Gonzales agreed on the importance of policies, sharing how under the current OSAEC law or Republic Act No. 11930, Series of 2022, any depictions of children in CSAEM, whether AI or other forms, are criminalized. 

This refers to Section 3, segment c which defined CSAEM as "any representation, whether offline, or by, through or with the use of information and communication technology (ICT), by means of visual, video, audio, written, or any combination thereof, by electronic, mechanical, digital, optical, magnetic or any other means, of a child engaged or involved in real or simulated sexual activities, or depicting acts of sexual abuse or exploitation of a child as a sexual object. It shall also include materials that focus on the genitalia or other private body parts of a child."

"In the Philippines, we're ahead. In terms of policy, we do have the policy in place to make sure it's illegal. If they ask us to give information on the person uploading, we can because we comply with the local law," said Gonzales. 

Gonzales also stressed that processes and systems are equally as important as policy, noting Google's zero tolerance policy for any form of CSAEM content included in their terms of service and policy community guidelines, and their machine learning technology used to detect both real and AI-generated CSAEM. 

"You can have the policies, tools, technology, but if you don't have the processes, systems, and manpower behind these to really put them into action... those really work hand-in-hand," he said. 

PLDT reiterated its stance on leading the "Global Chain of Trust" initiative as the telco continues to challenge capabilities and conceptualize new ideas to help improve how telcos and ISPs, especially in the Southeast Asian region, can prevent access to CSAEM. 

"The Trust can create a cleaner environment or cyberspace for children. The threat actors that are doing AI-generated CSAEM can create as many materials as they want, but the moment they publish on the internet, the Trust should not show those results or links, because by default they are not part of the Trust," said Redoble.

"The more telcos, ISPs, countries who will join, then the bigger the chain is created," he added