by BETH DUFF-BROWN
The Associated Press
TORONTO - A personal plea from a frustrated Toronto sex-crimes investigator to Microsoft founder Bill Gates led to the launch Thursday of an initiative to help law enforcement agents worldwide hunt down traffickers of child porn on the Internet.
The Child Exploitation Tracking System (CETS) was developed by Microsoft Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Toronto Police Service, with the help of global law enforcement experts, including officers from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Scotland Yard and Interpol.
In what Microsoft describes as the first software designed specifically to capture pornographers who prey on children and sell their images via the Internet, the system will allow police to share and track information on investigations and suspects.
“Sharing and exchanging information is one of the most powerful tools law enforcement agencies possess to battle against online child exploitation,” said David Hemler, president of Microsoft Canada. He said Internet pornographers were computer savvy, so the program would put law enforcement officials “on the same level as the bad guys.”
The FBI has seen a 2,000 percent increase in the number of child pornography images on the Internet since 1996 and Canadian police estimate that more than 100,000 Web sites contain images of child sexual abuse. Experts say at least 95 percent of victims are abused by someone they know, either a relative or neighbor.
“Criminals are using the Internet at an unprecedented rate to exploit the most vulnerable of our society _ our children,” said Canadian Minister of Public Safety Anne McLellan, who commended the creation of “a tool unlike any other in the world that will help keep our children safe from online predators.”
Hemler said Microsoft had committed $4.5 million (US$4 million, euro3.1 million) toward the program and said the software would be available to any police force, and at no cost.
The initiative was the result of an e-mail from Det. Sgt. Paul Gillespie, a member of the Toronto Police Service sex-crimes unit, after he sent an e-mail to Gates in January 2003 asking for help in battling child pornography. The billionaire, known for his philanthropy in the area of AIDS research and education, called on Microsoft Canada to develop a software program that would aid police officials.
Gillespie told The Associated Press several suspected pornographers have already been arrested from testing of the new system. One man was arrested in Toronto last week, after a tip plugged into CETS linked with two previous reports on the suspect.
“When we pulled up all three, it gave us the ability to physically identify somebody and grounds for an arrest warrant,” Gillespie said. “That person was investigated and arrested, and in fact found to be involved in abusing a child.”
Gillespie said another suspect was arrested several months ago, after information from the FBI, Scotland Yard and Homeland Security, investigating child pornography chatrooms and credit card purchases of the images, were programmed into the system.
“It identified a link between one of those people on the credit card list with one very small consistency in this chatroom in the UK,” Gillespie said. “Both pieces of the puzzles were put together and out of that we were able to identify somebody; an abuser of a young child taking pictures with his own camera.”