Credit card firms ‘fuelling child porn trade on internet’

CREDIT card companies such as Visa and MasterCard were last night accused of playing a key role in supporting the international trade in child pornography.

A leading figure in the fight against child porn, Professor Max Taylor, called for global pressure to force credit card companies to stop aiding the industry.

The vice-president of the European Parliament's Women's Rights Committee, Marianne Erikkson MEP, last night backed Prof Taylor's call.

"According to Portuguese research, there are 66 sites on the internet where you can buy a child with a credit card," she said.

"You cannot buy illegal drugs on the internet. It should be mission impossible to buy child pornography on the internet. The credit card companies must end their role in this."

Prof Max Taylor, director of Combating Paedophile Information Networks in Europe (COPINE), which helps police forces worldwide identify child pornographers, said credit card companies should stop doing business with purveyors of all types of pornography.

His comments come in the wake of Bank of Ireland's decision to withdraw financial backing for a British porn company, Remnant Media. The bank withdrew a €7.34 million loan to the company after the public outcry which followed the Irish Examiner's exposure of Bank of Ireland's deal with the porn company. And on Monday, Ms Erikkson, author of the Sex Industry in Ireland, called for all EU countries to follow Ireland's example.

Prof Taylor said yesterday: "The credit card companies will say what they are doing is legal, but making money through pornography is morally reprehensible. If there was no money to be made most of the companies selling porn on the internet would go away."

The director of COPINE, which operates out of University College Cork, said global trafficking in all forms of pornography would be decimated if credit card companies ceased processing billions of euro in on-line payments.

"It is hard to say what the full impact would be if credit card companies stopped taking payments on behalf of porn companies. One thing is certain it would have a major impact in curtailing the sale of pornography and this is highly desirable."

Prof Taylor said the advent of the internet has brought about a situation where business has to look at the moral context within which they operate.

"ISP [internet service providers] should also look at their operations. They could play a major role by blocking access to porn sites," he said.

Last night, however, credit card companies said they were already treating the problem seriously.

A MasterCard spokesman said: "It's an issue which MasterCard is taking really seriously, actually, and it's working behind the scenes with the FBI, British police, Irish police."

Visa said it was "incredibly proactive", while MBNA said it would do "whatever it can working alongside law enforcement agencies to arrest this problem".