Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much funding her Department has provided for (a) the creation and maintenance of the National Hash Set Database and (b) the creation of the Child Abuse Image Database.

The Home Office has provided £41,000 in 2013/14 and £75,000 in 2014/15 from the National Cyber Security Programme to fund the interim National Hash Set Database, which is run by Cheshire Police. The total cost of the Child Abuse Image Database (CAID) over three years to March 2017 is currently £3.3 million, chargeable to UK forces and the National Crime Agency.

iNHSD is a single database managed by a single officer in Cheshire Constabulary and includes only basic meta data alongside an image’s ‘hash’ identifier. CAID provides far more features and functionality for multiple users in each force in the UK and NCA-CEOP and will support enhanced analysis.