27 September 2023

Police guide to unline online predators

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The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has issued a warning to parents and carers on increasing instances of child sexual abuse by online predators during pandemic restrictions and has released a new guide to help people protect their children.

Along with the release of the guide, the AFP announced its plans to target predators who coached paedophiles on the dark web under new laws which bolstered its powers to identify offenders.

Detective Sergeant and Victim Identification Specialist with the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE), Svetlana Palmer said children as young as eight were being coerced into performing live-streamed sexual acts by online predators and the offence, known as ‘capping’ (for capturing), was one of the fastest growing trends of online child sexual abuse.

“Australian victim identification specialists are seeing an increase in the volume of newly produced videos every week on dark web abuse forums and believe hundreds of thousands of children in Australia and around the world have been tricked or coerced into unwittingly producing sexualised videos,” Detective Sergeant Palmer said.

“Investigators hope that by highlighting the concerning trend of ‘capping’, they can encourage children who have become victims to seek help and report the crime,” she said.

Detective Sergeant Palmer said child victims needed to be reassured that help was available and that by reporting what had happened, they may help the AFP catch an offender and prevent other children from being harmed.

“If your child is or has been a victim, reassure them that it’s not their fault and that there is help available,” she said.

The AFP said its new powers under the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Act 2021 would make it harder for perpetrators to hide on the dark web and other forums.

It said while the ACCCE regularly monitored child sex abuse literature and grooming manuals, the AFP could not previously take the material down from the dark web.

“Under the new legislation, coupled with other powers available to law enforcement,
the AFP will be able to remove child abuse manuals and other illegal content from the dark web,” the AFP said.

It said the new legislation included new warrants and avenues to help identify offenders including Account Takeover Warrants which allowed the AFP to assume an offender’s identity online and Data Disruption Warrants which gave it the ability to remove offending material from online forums.

Assistant Commissioner Northern Command for the AFP, Lesa Gale said the two warrants would give the AFP new avenues to help identify offenders who distributed, and in some cases, paid to watch children being abused.

The AFP’s guides and resources for parents and carers on how to protect their children online can be accessed on its ThinkUKnow website this PS News link.

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