MessageLabs Hosted Email Image Control Service


MessageLabs Hosted Email Image Control Service

MessageLabs hosted Email Image Control Service uses image composition analysis to scan email and email attachments to identify, control and block inappropriate images such as pornography.

Our Email Image Control Service complements our Email Content Control service, which ensures email confidentiality, while also working seamlessly with our Email Anti-Virus and Anti-Spam services to provide added levels of email security.

Why use MessageLabs Email Image Control Service?

The Email Image Control Service is a managed service. It requires no hardware and no ongoing upgrades. The service can be deployed in minutes to help enforce corporate policies.

Challenge Hosted Image Filter Benefit
Protecting employees from offensive images Scans, detects, controls, and blocks messages and attachments Pornographic and other inappropriate images are stopped before reaching your network
Protecting your company’s reputation Scans all outbound messages for inappropriate images Inappropriate images cannot leave your organisation
Enforcing acceptable usage policies for email Allows flexible monitoring of email image content Reduces misuse of email
Ensure image control is always in place Managed service with 100% availability service level Continuous image control is in place – no system updates required


As with all MessageLabs products, our Hosted Email Image Control Service includes 24x7x365 support.

Email Content Filter- How it works

MessageLabs Email Image Control Service employs multi-layered filtering technologies and state-of-the-art image signaturing to give you complete control over all images contained in your email communications. Image composition analysis harnesses techniques for facial recognition, body positioning and texture and flesh tone analysis to generate results that are processed by a complex scoring system to block or pass images. This approach is especially effective at detecting pornographic images.

Email Image Control Information Exchange



  • All incoming and outgoing emails are directed through the MessageLabs platform, hosted in secure data centres worldwide

  • Images embedded in or attached to an email are scanned to assess their compliance with your acceptable use policy, local rules and specific requirements

  • Any email which triggers a rule is subjected to a range of possible actions, such as ‘block/delete’ and ‘redirect to administrator’

  • All email which doesn’t trigger a rule is delivered as usual

  • Reports summarizing data collected and actions taken by the service can be generated easily

Getting started

Implementing our Email Image Control Service is a fast and easy process; you can be up and running within minutes. You simply pay a fixed monthly cost based on the number of users connected and the service is scalable, so new employees can be added easily as your business grows.

Our Email Image Control Service combined with our other services provides increased email security. Other service options include Email Content Control and Email Encryption which can be easily added on to the service, providing greater levels of protection to meet your organisation’s email security needs.

Take advantage of our free trial today.

Next Steps

dotted border