The number of web pages containing child pornography has more than doubled over the past year. Researchers have also revealed the material features increasingly young children. Nine out of every ten images of child sexual abuse found online in 2014 showed children aged ten and under, according to the Internet Watch Foundation. Overall, experts from the regulator removed more than 31,000 web pages featuring vile images of sexual abuse in 2014, soaring 136 per cent from around 13,000 the previous year . That was a dramatic increase from the year before, when around two-thirds of the child porn it found featured children of such a young age. They were part of a worrying rise in the amount of child abuse the IWF discovered online. Overall, experts from the regulator removed more than 31,000 web pages featuring vile images of sexual abuse in 2014, soaring 136 per cent from around 13,000 the previous year. The jump came after the internet watchdog was told that it could proactively seek out abusive content online, in order to shut it down. The IWF won the extra powers last year in the wake of the 2012 murders of Tia Sharp, 12, and April Jones, five – girls who were both killed by men who watched child porn online. Emma Hardy, the IWF's director of external relations, said: 'The biggest change for us last year was our ability to proactively search for child sexual abuse imagery. Our analysts are able to actively search for the content, rather than merely wait for reports to come in from the public. 'That's made a huge difference. Last year we were able to process 74,000 reports and identify just over 31,000 child sexual abuse web pages. 'I think there's still a huge amount out there. We've got a long way to go until we see the peak of this problem.' In its annual report, the IWF said it alerts law enforcement agencies and hotlines in other countries when it discovers foreign-based web pages with child sexual abuse images and 'repeatedly chases' them until they are removed. Kevin Bollaert, 28, was sentenced to 18 years after he was convicted in February of 21 counts of identity theft and six counts of extortion  for running websites that capitalised on the internet as a forum for public shaming . Most of the photographs and videos of sexual abuse that the IWF found online were on websites hosted in North America. Just 0.3 per cent of the images – just over 90 pictures or videos – appeared on web pages hosted in Britain, down from 18 per cent in 1996, when IWF was founded. But although more child porn is now being removed from the web, the shocking figures also highlight the massive scale of the problem online. Susie Hargreaves, chief executive of IWF, said technology companies were 'stepping up' efforts to tackle the amount of images of sexual abuse online. But she added that many of them were still too slow to take images down, or failed to acknowledge they have a problem. 'This year will ensure they have nowhere to hide as we will be targeting them for the benefit of all internet users and victims of sexual abuse,' she said. IWF is funded by 117 technology companies around the world, including Google, Facebook and Twitter. Criminals are using many legitimate websites to distribute pictures and videos of child sexual abuse imagery, the IWF said. In particular, they targeted websites which are specifically designed to allow users to upload pictures, and make them available via a unique web page address, or 'URL'. Nearly 20,000 of the web pages removed last year were hosted by these sorts of sites. ÷ Paedophiles are using the digital currency bitcoin to buy child sexual abuse images online, the IWF found. It said a number of the most prolific commercial child sexual abuse websites started accepting the currency last year.
Worrying rise in the amount of child abuse discovered on the internet . Experts from Internet Watch Foundation removed 31,000 web pages . This represented a 136 per cent rise from around 13,000 the previous year . Most pictures and videos found online were on websites in North America .