24. In addition to hearing evidence in open public sessions, the Inquiry held a number of private or ‘closed’ sessions. The closed sessions enabled the Inquiry to consider evidence that was relevant to the investigation but which had been assessed as being too sensitive to put into the public domain. Section 19 of the Inquiries Act 2005 sets out the legal framework for restricting public access to the hearing and to certain specified documents by the issuing of restriction orders.

25. The restriction orders^[1] relate predominantly to sensitive detection techniques deployed by law enforcement and industry. To reveal those techniques would compromise the ability of the police and industry to detect online-facilitated child sexual abuse.

26. Following the conclusion of the closed sessions, the transcripts of those sessions were reviewed to ensure that only that material which was covered by the restriction orders was withheld from publication. Where the evidence given was not covered by a restriction order, the Inquiry published those additional parts of the transcript.^[2]

27. The Inquiry has not prepared a closed part of this report. This report, including our conclusions and recommendations, takes into account all the evidence heard in both the open and closed sessions.