---
title: NCMEC Reporting
slug: ncmec-reporting
docTags: 
createdAt: 2026-05-12T14:50:07.081Z
---

### What is NCMEC?

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) operates the CyberTipline - the official US channel for online platforms to report child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and related offences. In the United States, reporting to NCMEC is a legal requirement for any online platform that becomes aware of CSAM on its service.

Nima has a built-in NCMEC integration. Once configured, reports are filed automatically whenever a child safety policy violation is confirmed — no manual submission required.

### How it works

Nima handles NCMEC reporting differently depending on how the moderation decision is made:

**Cases moderated automatically by AI**
When an AI rule confirms a child safety policy violation without human review, the case is routed to the **NGO/LEA review queue**. This queue is used for moderator to confirm the submission of NCMEC reports automatically with all the data required.

:::hint{type="warning"}
The NGO/LEA queues is only a Review queue and should not be used for usual moderation decisions by moderators
:::

**Cases moderated by a human moderator**
When a moderator confirms a child safety policy violation within queues - whether the case originated from a user report, a trusted flagger, an LEA request, or a proactive detection queue - a prompt appears asking them to submit the report to NCMEC. The moderator completes the submission from the moderation console.

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### Before you start

To connect Nima to NCMEC, **your organisation needs an ESP (Electronic Service Provider) account with NCMEC**, which gives you a username and password for the CyberTipline. If you don't have one yet, contact NCMEC directly to register your platform.

Your Nima account team will handle the technical connection once you have your credentials - you don't need to set up anything in the platform until that step is complete.

:::hint{type="info"}
Following the removal of a content, the original URL of your content will no longer be available to Nima.

To make sure you send a valid URL to NCMEC, **contact the Tremau team to agree on how to share a secured URL in the response of the action endpoint when a webhook is sent.**
:::

## Configuring the workflow

### Step 1: Admin Setup - Configuring NCMEC Reporting

This is a one-time setup. Once configured, the integration runs automatically in the background.

In Nima, navigate to **Configure > Compliance > External Reporting System**.

NCMEC will be listed as an available reporting agency - it comes pre-loaded, so there is nothing to add manually.

### Step 2 - Create a Reporting Rule

Click **Add Rule**. A reporting rule tells Nima:

- which policy violations should trigger an automatic NCMEC report
- to which review queue AI-detected cases should pass through before submission
- and who at your organisation is listed as the contact on each submission.

Fill in the following fields:

- **Name of External Report Rule** — A clear internal label, for example: *NCMEC — CSAM Auto-Report*.
- **Agency** — Open the agency selector and choose *NCMEC*.
- **Policies** — Choose every child safety policy that should trigger a report when confirmed. You can select multiple policies. If you select a parent policy (e.g. *Child Safety*), all sub-policies under it are covered automatically.
- **Review queue** — The queue where AI-detected cases are sent for human review before submission - by default, **this queue is NGO/LEA Review Queue**. Once a moderator confirms the violation in that queue, the report fires automatically.
- **Reporting contact** — The person at your organisation registered as the responsible contact with NCMEC, and the one they will reach out to with questions about a report. Nima asks for their **first name**, **last name**, **email** and **phone**, together with a full postal address — **address**, **city**, **state**, **zip code** and **country** — because NCMEC requires a contactable physical address on every submission.
- **Agency escalation email** — Where NCMEC escalations should be directed, if this differs from the reporting contact.

### Step 3  - Enable the Rule

Toggle the rule to **Enabled**. It will now fire automatically whenever one of the linked policies is confirmed on a case.

You can pause the rule at any time by toggling it off. Reports already submitted are not affected.

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### What gets sent to NCMEC

Each report is populated directly from the case:

- The secured content URL sent back to Nima following any take down
- The reported user's details (name, email, platform ID)
- The date and time of the original report
- The type of incident, matched to the policy violation confirmed

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### NCMEC Incident Types

When submitting a report, you'll be asked to select an incident type. Choose the one that most accurately describes what was found:

| **Incident type**                             | **When to use it**                                                         |
| --------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Child Pornography                             | CSAM — sexual imagery involving a minor                                    |
| Child Sex Trafficking                         | Content advertising or facilitating the trafficking of minors              |
| Child Sex Tourism                             | Content promoting or arranging sexual tourism involving minors             |
| Child Sexual Molestation                      | Depictions or descriptions of the sexual molestation of a child            |
| Online Enticement of Children for Sexual Acts | An adult attempting to solicit a minor into sexual activity                |
| Unsolicited Obscene Material Sent to a Child  | Sexually explicit content sent to a minor without consent                  |
| Misleading Domain Name                        | A URL designed to lure minors to explicit content                          |
| Misleading Words or Images on the Internet    | Text or imagery designed to deceive minors into accessing explicit content |

### Important Things to Know

- **Reports cannot be undone**
  Once a report has been submitted and accepted by NCMEC, it cannot be withdrawn. If you are unsure whether a case warrants a report, use your review queue step to verify before confirming.
- **One report per piece of content.** If the same content has already been reported successfully to NCMEC, Nima will not send a duplicate report — even if the case is re-reviewed or the job retries after a failure.
- **Media files are included automatically.** For image, video, and audio content, Nima uploads the file directly to NCMEC as part of the report. You don't need to download or attach anything manually.
- **Sub-policies are covered. **If your reporting rule is linked to a parent policy (e.g. *\*Child Safety\**), it will automatically apply to all sub-policies beneath it. You don't need to create separate rules for each sub-category.