Reporting paths: who to contact where

When something has crossed a line, the question is not whether to tell someone. It is which person, in which office, in which country.

The crossed-line situations are: illegal content, grooming, extortion, image-based sexual abuse, or cyberbullying that has escalated past what the family can handle.

This page lists the reporting paths the practitioner literature and the public authorities document as the first-party contacts in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The three countries are not interchangeable.

The German, Austrian and Swiss reporting paths share a language and little else.

They are operated by different authorities under different legal mandates, and they route reports through different chains.

The page is structured as three country-specific sections. Read the section that matches the country where the incident was observed [source: ADR-0003].

What “first-party reporting” means

The reporting paths listed below are first-party in the sense that the body taking the report has a statutory or institutional mandate to receive it.

It also has a defined next step after receiving it.

They are not the only paths. Platforms have their own in-app reporting. INHOPE routes cross-border reports between national hotlines for illegal content.

Those mechanisms are documented in the reporting-illegal-content page. This page covers the public, country-level reporting paths.

A first-party report is also not a substitute for an emergency call.

If the child is in immediate danger, the emergency number is on emergency-hotlines. Reporting a crime and responding to an emergency are different actions.

Germany

In Germany, the first-party reporting paths are split by the type of incident.

Illegal content (CSAM, extremist propaganda, self-harm content)

The first-party reporting point for content that is illegal in Germany is jugendschutz.net.

It operates under a federal-state mandate as the joint enforcement body for youth protection on the internet.

Reports can be submitted anonymously through the website. For some categories, jugendschutz.net also accepts reports by email [source: jugendschutz-net-erste-hilfe].

jugendschutz.net assesses the report. It contacts the hosting provider. Where appropriate, it refers the case to law enforcement.

It does not operate a live helpline. It operates an intake form.

Cybergrooming, sexual abuse, sextortion

The first-party reporting point for cases involving sexual violence against children, cybergrooming or sextortion is Hilfetelefon Sexueller Missbrauch (0800 22 55 530).

The helpline is run by the Bundesamt für Familie und zivilgesellschaftliche Aufgaben under the federal mandate established by the 2020 act.

It is anonymous, free, and operates in German plus interpretation for other languages [source: de-hilfetelefon-missbrauch].

The helpline can route callers to local specialist counselling and, where appropriate, support a police report.

For incidents where the adult contacted the child through a specific platform, the platform’s own reporting path is parallel to the helpline and not a substitute for it.

jugendschutz.net and the helpline are the country-level entry points.

Cyberbullying and online harassment

For cyberbullying and online harassment, the practitioner-recommended first contact for adolescents is JUUUPORT.

It is the peer-to-peer advice platform funded by the federal government. The platform is targeted at the young person as the primary caller, not at the parent.

Parents seeking orientation are typically directed to the practitioner hub at Nummer gegen Kummer or klicksafe [source: de-juuuport] [source: klicksafe-handreichung-elternabende].

For cases that have escalated to criminal harassment, the local Polizei is the appropriate next step.

That is the state-level Landeskriminalamt cybercrime division or the Bundeskriminalamt cybercrime unit.

The helpline at Hilfetelefon Sexueller Missbrauch can advise on which unit to contact when the case straddles categories [source: de-hilfetelefon-missbrauch].

Child wanting to talk

The general-purpose children and young people’s helpline is Nummer gegen Kummer — Kinder- und Jugendtelefon (116 111).

It is not a reporting hotline. It is the place a child can talk about something that happened without that conversation being reported forward without consent [source: de-nummergegenkummer-kinder].

The German practitioner literature treats this separation as load-bearing. A child who is afraid the helpline will tell the parents will not call.

The helpline does not report forward without consent [source: klicksafe-handreichung-elternabende].

Austria

In Austria, the reporting paths are similarly split by incident type. But the operators and the legal bases differ from Germany’s.

Illegal content and platform-side escalation

The first-party reporting and mediation office for illegal online content and online harassment is the Internet Ombudsstelle.

It is operated by ISPA, the Austrian internet service providers’ association.

The Ombudsstelle accepts reports through its website. It mediates with platforms. It acts as a trusted flagger under the EU Digital Services Act framework [source: at-internet-ombudsstelle].

The Ombudsstelle is not a live helpline. It operates an intake form. For incidents requiring immediate police intervention, the Ombudsstelle advises going to the local Polizei directly.

Grooming, sextortion, image-based abuse

For cases involving sexual violence, cybergrooming or image-based abuse, the practitioner-recommended first contact is Rat auf Draht (147).

It is the Austrian emergency phone and online counselling service. It operates under the Kinder- und Jugendanwaltschaft framework.

Rat auf Draht takes calls from children, adolescents and parents. It can route cases to specialist counselling and to police [source: at-rat-auf-draht].

The Austrian Safer Internet Centre (Saferinternet.at) maintains parent-facing guidance on what to do in each type of incident.

Its role is awareness rather than case-handling [source: saferinternet-medien-in-der-familie].

Cyberbullying and online harassment

For cyberbullying and online harassment, Rat auf Draht (147) is the practitioner-recommended first contact for both children and parents.

The Austrian system does not operate a parallel peer-to-peer service in the same way as Germany’s JUUUPORT. The role is fulfilled by the same helpline [source: at-rat-auf-draht].

For platform-side escalation, the Internet Ombudsstelle is the first-party Austrian channel.

There is a caveat: cases involving criminal acts are typically referred onward to the police.

Layered defence guidance

The Austrian Safer Internet Centre publishes the layered-defence guidance.

It describes how the reporting layer fits alongside technical controls on the device and on the network.

The guidance is the practitioner reference for how a parent is expected to combine settings, conversation and reporting [source: saferinternet-technischer-kinderschutz].

Switzerland

In Switzerland, the reporting paths are split between federal-level law enforcement, foundation-level helplines and federal awareness platforms.

The federal structure is the Bundesamt für Polizei (fedpol), which hosts the KOBIK coordination unit for cybercrime.

Illegal content, grooming, extortion

The first-party reporting point for illegal internet content, cybergrooming and extortion is KOBIK / fedpol.

KOBIK is the Swiss Coordination Unit for Cybercrime Control, hosted at fedpol.

Reports are submitted through a web form on the fedpol site. They are not handled as a live helpline but routed for review [source: ch-fedpol-cybercrime].

For incidents requiring immediate police intervention, the cantonal police (Kantonspolizei) is the right contact.

The federal reporting form is for cases where there is no immediate danger and where the report can be assessed and routed.

Child wanting to talk

The general-purpose children and young people’s helpline is Pro Juventute 147.

Phone, web chat and SMS at 147. The service is operated by the Pro Juventute foundation, which is publicly funded.

It is anonymous and confidential. Reports are not made forward without the child’s consent [source: ch-pro-juventute-147].

Parent seeking orientation

The parent-side counterpart to the 147 line is Pro Juventute Elternberatung (058 261 61 61).

It takes parent calls and forms. It provides advisory on parenting and digital-media questions. It is not a reporting hotline [source: ch-pro-juventute-elternberatung].

The federal information platform jugendundmedien.ch is the first-stop orientation resource for Swiss parents.

It is operated by the federal government in collaboration with cantonal authorities. It maintains milestone guides for parents of children at different ages [source: jugendundmedien-ch-jugend-medien-6-10] [source: jugendundmedien-ch-jugend-medien-14plus].

Specialist cases (image-based abuse)

For cases involving image-based sexual abuse involving minors, the Swiss practitioner route runs through KOBIK / fedpol.

The foundation-level helplines provide the child-facing entry point. Pro Juventute and Kinderschutz.ch (the Swiss Society for the Protection of the Child) maintain guidance and route cases [source: ch-pro-juventute-147].

What this page does not do

It does not cover the platform-level in-app reporting paths. Each platform has its own reporting flow.

The reporting paths documented here are the country-level public contacts. They route reports through institutional channels, not platform-by-platform reporting.

It does not cover legal proceedings once a report has been filed.

What happens after a report lands at jugendschutz.net, the Internet Ombudsstelle or KOBIK / fedpol is outside the scope of this wiki.

It does not cover the substantive criminal law in each jurisdiction. The relevant legal norms differ.

This page covers the reporting entry points, not the legal categories. The country-specific legal articles in this wiki cover the law.

It does not cover jurisdictions outside Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

For other jurisdictions, the Better Internet for Kids portal maintained by the European Commission is the entry point through the Insafe network.

The relevant wikilink is on the where-to-get-help page.

Why the three sections are separate

A German, Austrian and Swiss parent reading a single combined page on “German-speaking Europe” would get the wrong number.

The three jurisdictions operate different reporting paths under different legal mandates, different funding models and different languages of operation.

The same body name in two countries can mean two unrelated organisations. The same phone number in two countries can mean two unrelated services.

The decision to keep the three sections separate follows from the wiki’s localisation principle.

ADR-0003 (docs/decisions/0003-localization-classes-and-jurisdiction-axis.md in the repository) treats the language axis and the jurisdictional axis as orthogonal.

A jurisdictional page must not blur them [source: ADR-0003].

A reader who wants the German section, the Austrian section or the Swiss section can read it directly.

A reader who wants a comparison of all three should treat the sections as three separate documents on the same topic.

Sources

Each marker resolves to a stub under Wiki/sources/ with the URL, the retrieval date, and the licence.

Germany

• jugendschutz-net-erste-hilfe — jugendschutz.net, first-party reporting hotline for illegal content in Germany [source: jugendschutz-net-erste-hilfe].

• de-hilfetelefon-missbrauch — Bundesamt für Familie und zivilgesellschaftliche Aufgaben, federal helpline for sexual violence and cybergrooming, phone 0800 22 55 530 [source: de-hilfetelefon-missbrauch].

• de-juuuport — JUUUPORT, peer-to-peer advice platform for adolescents in cyberbullying and online-scam cases [source: de-juuuport].

• de-nummergegenkummer-kinder — Nummer gegen Kummer, Kinder- und Jugendtelefon, anonymous helpline for children and young people, phone 116 111 [source: de-nummergegenkummer-kinder].

• klicksafe-handreichung-elternabende — klicksafe, workshop manual framing the practitioner guidance for German parents; CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 DE [source: klicksafe-handreichung-elternabende].

Austria

• at-rat-auf-draht — Rat auf Draht / ORF, Austrian emergency phone and online counselling, phone 147 [source: at-rat-auf-draht].

• at-internet-ombudsstelle — Internet Ombudsstelle / ISPA, Austrian first-party reporting and mediation office for illegal online content and online harassment [source: at-internet-ombudsstelle].

• saferinternet-medien-in-der-familie — Saferinternet.at, “Medien in der Familie”. The Austrian practitioner family guide; CC BY-NC 3.0 AT [source: saferinternet-medien-in-der-familie].

• saferinternet-technischer-kinderschutz — Safer Internet Centre Austria, layered-defence guidance describing how reporting fits with technical controls [source: saferinternet-technischer-kinderschutz].

Switzerland

• ch-fedpol-cybercrime — KOBIK / fedpol, Swiss federal reporting point for illegal internet content, grooming and extortion [source: ch-fedpol-cybercrime].

• ch-pro-juventute-147 — Pro Juventute 147, Swiss emergency counselling for children and young people, phone 147 [source: ch-pro-juventute-147].

• ch-pro-juventute-elternberatung — Pro Juventute Elternberatung, Swiss parent-side advisory service [source: ch-pro-juventute-elternberatung].

• jugendundmedien-ch-jugend-medien-6-10 — jugendundmedien.ch, “Kinder von 6 bis 10 Jahren”. The Swiss federal milestone guide [source: jugendundmedien-ch-jugend-medien-6-10].

• jugendundmedien-ch-jugend-medien-14plus — jugendundmedien.ch, “Jugendliche ab 14 Jahren”. The Swiss federal milestone guide for adolescents [source: jugendundmedien-ch-jugend-medien-14plus].