Payment processor / financial service

Last Updated 7/2/25

Definition: Companies that facilitate digital transactions, money transfers, and payment processing services that can be exploited to enable or monetize technology-facilitated gender-based violence.

Mitigation Strategies:

Know your customer (KYC) Transparent feedback and reporting Rate limits on low trust accounts Prioritized reporting Safety onboarding & awareness training

Synonyms

Financial service provider, Payment platform, Digital payment service

Examples

Discover, Mastercard, Visa, American Express, PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, Zelle, gift card companies, cryptocurrency exchanges

Description

These services are frequently exploited in financial sexual extortion. schemes, where perpetrators demand payment to prevent the release of intimate images. They are also implicated when purchases are made through their services to access abuse material on a website. Financial services companies have cut ties with websites known to host child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and other intimate image abuse material in the past, and are responsible for continuing to do so if they are to exculpate themselves (Goodwin, 2020; Kristof, 2025).

Research on sexual extortion reports that the most common payment methods are PayPal, Cash App, and gift cards (Canadian Centre for Child Protection, 2022, Thorn & NCMEC, 2024).

References

Australian eSafety Commissioner. (2024, September). Technology, gendered violence and Safety by Design: An industry guide for addressing technology-facilitated gender-based violence through Safety by Design. Australian ESafety Commissioner. https://www.esafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-09/SafetyByDesign-technology-facilitated-gender-based-violence-industry-guide.pdf
Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P). (2022, November). Resources & Research: An Analysis of Financial Sextortion Victim Posts Published on r/Sextortion. https://protectchildren.ca/en/resources-research/an-analysis-of-financial-sextortion-victim-posts-published-on-sextortion/
Goodwin, J. (2020, December 14). Mastercard, Visa and Discover cut ties with Pornhub following allegations of child abuse. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/14/business/mastercard-visa-discover-pornhub
Kristof, N. (2025, May 10). Opinion | What People at Pornhub Were Thinking When It Shared Videos of Child Rape. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/10/opinion/pornhub-children-documents.html
Thorn and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). (2024). Trends in Financial Sextortion An investigation of sextortion reports in NCMEC CyberTipline data. https://info.thorn.org/hubfs/Research/Thorn_TrendsInFinancialSextortion_June2024.pdf

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