MONTREAL — Crime Stoppers International has reneged on a pledge to make public its report on how the Canadian company behind Pornhub keeps child sexual abuse and other illegal material from appearing on its platforms.

In March 2024, Netherlands-based Crime Stoppers International (CSI) said it was reviewing Pornhub owner Aylo’s trust and safety processes, which are designed to keep child sexual abuse material, non-consensual images and revenge porn from appearing on its platforms. CSI promised to make its findings and recommendations public. “Crime Stoppers International’s dedication to transparency is unwavering,” the company said at the time. 

In an October 2024 email to The Logic, CSI CEO Shane Britten reiterated CSI’s commitment to release its Aylo report by the end of 2024. CSI’s audit team visited Aylo facilities in Cyprus and Montreal as part of the report, Britten said at the time. In 2023, CSI received $30,000 for the “Aylo Project” according to documents filed with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. It isn’t clear whether Aylo provided the funds to CSI or what the money was for.

CSI completed its report into Aylo earlier this year, according to a May 2025 news release. Yet it didn’t make its findings public. Britten didn’t respond to a query regarding the report’s contents or when it would be publicly available. 

Aylo, formerly known as MindGeek, was purchased in 2023 by Ethical Capital Partners (ECP), a British Virgin Island-based private equity firm with an office in Ottawa. Aylo announced a “working relationship” with CSI in January 2024. The following summer, CSI sent out the “Aylo External Stakeholder Survey” to various child protection services and governmental online protection agencies. The survey, a copy of which The Logic obtained, asked stakeholders to rate Aylo’s trust and safety measures, including its effectiveness in keeping illegal and harmful content off Pornhub and other Aylo platforms.

In an email, ECP partner and vice-president Sarah Bain confirmed that CSI had reviewed the company’s trust and safety procedures. She didn’t respond to questions about the contents of the report, why it hasn’t been made public or the financial relationship between Aylo and CSI. “The work required to keep the internet safe has no end date,” she wrote.

CSI, which represents 800 Crime Stoppers chapters worldwide, has faced criticism from its members for working with Aylo. In April 2024, Crime Stoppers Australia ended its relationship with CSI, following the latter’s partnership with Aylo. Australian actress Madeleine West resigned from CSI’s board as a result of the partnership.

CSI repeatedly promised to make the report public, according to correspondence between CSI and Australian non-profit Collective Shout, based on documents seen by The Logic. “When we complete our review, we will make the report publicly available. We strongly believe this is in the best interests of the global communities we serve,” Britten wrote to Collective Shout co-founder Melinda Tankard Reist in April 2024.

In the same email, Britten said CSI charged Aylo for time and resources to complete the review of the company’s trust and safety practices. “There are no funding arrangements outside of that project,” Britten wrote to Reist. 

Reist claimed CSI appeared out of its depth in initial conversations about the audit of Pornhub in 2024, and was unaware of the scope of the charges against Aylo and of the 2020 New York Times exposé that said the popular adult website was “infested with rape videos.”

In Reist’s last correspondence with Britten on May 26, Britten said a confidentiality clause prevented CSI from releasing the report. “It is now a matter for Aylo whether it makes a version available for public release,” Britten wrote.

Founded in 2021, ECP pledged to revamp Pornhub and other Aylo-owned brands by emphasizing trust and safety rules around access to the sites, as well as performer consent and what ECP partner Solomon Friedman called “public and transparent dialogue.” The private equity firm declined to share details of its acquisition for the Pornhub owner, though court documents filed in March revealed the deal was worth US$400 million.

In November 2023, Aylo acknowledged that it operated, hosted and took payments from sex trafficking ventures GirlsDoPorn.com and GirlsDoToys.com. The admission was part of a settlement of a U.S. federal criminal investigation into Aylo regarding its relationship with the two websites. As part of the settlement, Aylo entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, which allows companies to avoid criminal prosecution. It also paid undisclosed sums to the victims of the sex trafficking ventures.

The agreement with U.S. authorities also states that sex-trafficking charges against Aylo will be dismissed if the company complies with the terms, which include employing human- and tech-based reviews of all uploaded content, as well as using software to detect images of minors and other non-consensual content on its platforms.

In August 2024, Danielle Robitaille and Scott Hutchison of Toronto-based law firm Henein Hutchison Robitaille were appointed as independent compliance monitors of Aylo as part of the deferred prosecution agreement. “The terms of our appointment and the deferred prosecution agreement include confidentiality provisions that prevent us from commenting any further on the matter,” Robitaille wrote to The Logic in an email at the time.