We came across an incredible project online, and so we had to share it.

Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency, which works with member states to tackle serious international crime and terrorism, has launched a new initiative to help stop child sexual abuse online.

“Trace An Object” asks members of the public to help Europol identify the origins of specific items found in sexually explicit material involving minors. The idea is that these objects are potentially specific to one location or country and so Europol are appealing for eyes to look at these images and see if they can help to work out where these objects come from.

The project was launched just a week ago and it has already received over 10,000 contributions from the general public.

If you’d like to see whether you can identify any of the objects you can take a look at them on Europol’s dedicated page, which has been updated recently, so do check back from time to time. Submissions can also be made anonymously.

We think this is a wonderful project. More and more of us are online and using the internet for good, so getting people from around the world involved in making the internet a safer place is a natural progression for web users, and an excellent use of our time.

We wish Europol lots of success.