A curated list of tools, research, organizations, datasets, and frameworks for trust and safety, child protection, and content moderation. Maintained by the SENTINEL Foundation.
- Detection and Moderation Tools
- Child Safety Organizations
- Regulatory Frameworks
- Research and Datasets
- Academic Venues
- Industry Coalitions
- Learning Resources
- SENTINEL - Open-source behavioral intelligence platform for detecting child grooming through conversation patterns, relationship graphs, and temporal signals. Compliance-ready for DSA, UK Online Safety Act, and COPPA. Free for platforms under $100k revenue.
- Google Perspective API - Machine learning API for detecting toxic content using a model trained on millions of comments.
- Microsoft Azure Content Moderator - AI service for detecting offensive, risky, or undesirable content in text, images, and video.
- IWF Image Intercept - Internet Watch Foundation API for detecting known child sexual abuse imagery via PhotoDNA hash matching.
- Microsoft PhotoDNA - Technology for detecting known CSAM using robust image hashing. Available to qualifying organizations.
- NCMEC CyberTipline - US national clearinghouse for reports of child sexual exploitation online. Platforms operating in the US are legally required to report.
- Project Arachnid - Canadian Centre for Child Protection crawler that detects child sexual abuse material across the web.
- k-ID - Age assurance platform for game developers, providing parental consent flows and age-appropriate feature gating.
- Jigsaw Harassment Manager - Open-source tool for researchers and journalists to document online harassment.
- Cleanspeak - Profanity filter and user moderation platform for games and social platforms.
- Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) - UK-based charity operating the global hotline for reporting online child sexual abuse content.
- INHOPE - International Association of Internet Hotlines, coordinating 51 national hotlines for CSAM reporting.
- WeProtect Global Alliance - Global movement dedicated to protecting children from sexual exploitation and abuse online.
- Thorn - Technology nonprofit building tools to defend children from sexual abuse, including Safer for detecting CSAM at upload.
- National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) - US clearinghouse for CyberTipline reports. US federal law requires electronic service providers to report CSAM to NCMEC.
- Crimes Against Children Research Center (CCRC) - Research center at University of New Hampshire studying crimes against children, including online grooming.
- ConnectSafely - Non-profit focused on educating users about safety, privacy, and security online.
- Childnet - UK charity working to make the internet safer for children.
- Internet Matters - UK non-profit providing resources to help families navigate online safety.
- 5Rights Foundation - Advocacy organization establishing children's rights in the digital world.
- UK Safer Internet Centre - Partnership of three organizations providing support for online safety in the UK.
- eSafety Commissioner - World's first government regulator for online safety, with powers to require removal of harmful content.
- Digital Services Act (DSA) - EU regulation requiring platforms to conduct risk assessments and take measures to protect minors.
- GDPR Article 8 - Special provisions for children's data requiring parental consent below age 16 (member states may lower to 13).
- Online Safety Act 2023 - UK legislation requiring platforms to protect users from illegal and harmful content, with enhanced duties toward children.
- Ofcom Online Safety Guidance - Ofcom's codes of practice and guidance for platforms under the Online Safety Act.
- Age Appropriate Design Code - ICO code setting 15 standards for services likely to be accessed by children.
- COPPA - FTC rule requiring verifiable parental consent before collecting data from children under 13.
- REPORT Act - US law strengthening reporting requirements for platforms detecting child sexual exploitation.
- Online Safety Act 2021 - Australian legislation establishing the eSafety Commissioner's powers.
- An et al. (2026) - State-of-the-art grooming detection using multi-modal behavioral signals and NLP.
- Leiva-Bianchi et al. (2025) - Meta-analysis of ML approaches to online grooming detection in Scientific Reports.
- McKeever & Hamm (2025) - Comparing ML models with focus on tone in grooming chat logs, Frontiers in Pediatrics.
- Michalopoulos & Mavridis (2011) - Foundational work on automated detection of online predatory behavior.
- PAN 2012 Sexual Predator Identification Dataset - Benchmark dataset of chat conversations for grooming detection research.
- SENTINEL Synthetic Dataset - Open synthetic behavioral dataset for grooming signal research, v1.0.
- WOAH (Workshop on Online Abuse and Harms) - Annual workshop co-located with major NLP conferences. Premier venue for online harm detection research.
- ACM FAccT - Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency. Relevant for demographic parity in content moderation.
- ACM CCS - Conference on Computer and Communications Security. Relevant for privacy-preserving detection architectures.
- IEEE S&P - IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy.
- ACM CHI - Human factors in computing, including user-facing safety systems.
- Technology Coalition - Alliance of technology companies committed to fighting online child sexual exploitation. Operates Project Protect.
- ROOST - Open-source safety tooling ecosystem for platform operators.
- Trust and Safety Professional Association (TSPA) - Professional community for trust and safety practitioners.
- FOSI (Family Online Safety Institute) - International non-profit working to make the online world safer for children and families.
- NCMEC NetSmartz - Educational resources for children, parents, and educators on online safety.
- IWF Awareness Resources - Reports, guides, and awareness materials from the Internet Watch Foundation.
- Oxford Internet Institute - Multidisciplinary research on the social implications of the internet.
- LSE Media and Communications - Research group studying children's digital lives and online safety (Prof. Sonia Livingstone).
Contributions welcome. Please open a PR with:
- A brief description of why the resource belongs on this list
- A direct link to the resource
- Confirmation the resource is actively maintained
All entries must be genuinely useful to trust and safety practitioners, researchers, or platform operators.
Maintained by the SENTINEL Foundation. CC0 1.0 Universal.