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The first step to preventing cyber-crimes against children is community education

The second is knowing how to handle the evidence when the worst happens

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By Jessica Smith

This morning, I entered a new chapter on parenting. “Mom, can I have a cell phone?” The question came from the back seat as we drove to kindergarten. My child’s pigtail-framed, serious blue eyes in the rearview mirror told me she wasn’t kidding (as I had desperately hoped). Before you have a coronary, the answer is no, my tiny human will not be getting a cell phone for a long time. Yet decisions about how and when to allow younger children to access technology are inevitable, especially as technology surges forward and schools require more digital participation. For both parents and law enforcement officers, the best way to face off against this potential foe is preparation. Knowing how predators operate via digital platforms and in person as well as prevention strategies can help you better investigate cases of exploitation, as well as protect children from becoming victims.

To effectively help communities stay safe and respond to these crimes when they happen, investigators will need some basic background information about this predatory process.

HOW IT HAPPENS

In 2019, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s (NCMEC) cyber tip line received 19,174 reports of online enticement, including situations where an individual is communicating with a presumed child with the intent to commit a sexual offense or abduction. Expanding further, in 2020, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), documented 153,369 web pages containing child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Of those, 68,000 (44%) were assessed to contain “self-generated” child sexual abuse imagery where children filmed or photographed themselves. The majority of this occurs via coercion; an adult livestreams with the child as the adult records or grabs screenshots, often referred to as “capping.” According to the IWF, this happens when an abuser shows pornographic material for the child to replicate, providing verbal or typed instructions, or pretending to be a child of a similar age who is willing to also share explicit photos or videos.

WHERE IT HAPPENS

Dark web chat forums specific to pedophilia yield insights into grooming and enticement tactics that validate IWF’s annual CSAM review findings. Users often discuss using pornography as an easy and effective way to broach the topic of sex with their intended victims, both in-person and online, by preying on children’s curiosity. Users also share “tips and tricks” regarding how to craft fictitious social media profiles and pretend to be children, as documented by IWF, to more easily convince victims to share photos or videos of themselves. The chat logs largely conclude that male victims engage more readily to sexualized profiles where the user appears to be a young female, while female victims respond to profiles that appear to be other young females with similar interests. A few other findings from the 2020 IWF report are worth noting.

  • Pre-pubescent children make up the greatest victim pool. At this stage of life, children are much more likely to obey instructions given to them by an adult, simply because the instructor is an adult. Add in that school is beginning to shift further online, it becomes more natural for children to obey adult figures via an electronic device.
  • Grooming of parents is as much a part of the process as grooming the child. Chat participants discussed first friending and engaging parents on social media before connecting with the child. If the parent trusts this individual, it may result in more unmonitored access, physical or digital, to the child.
  • Sextortion is one of the easiest ways for offenders to perpetuate online exploitation. Once the offender has an image or video of a sexual act, they have leverage over that child. The fear of potential repercussions along with shame and embarrassment are enough for that child to continue sharing content with their abuser.

CRIME MITIGATION: EDUCATING POTENTIAL VICTIMS AND PARENTS IS KEY

Grooming for sexual abuse is a sophisticated operation. Offenders shift platforms, share tactics and build profiles that, even to veteran investigators, appear to be another child. So, what are we to do when these predators seem to craft their entire lives around child exploitation?

Preventative measures include strict privacy settings, keeping personal information offline and ignoring connection requests from strangers. Here are a few additional measures that investigators can advise parents to consider to decrease the likelihood of predatory contact and encourage minors to seek help sooner:

  • Don’t accept connection requests from anyone whom your child has not met in person. A mutual friend of your child’s BFF Jennifer doesn’t guarantee that Jennifer has met that individual in person, or that they have a trusting relationship.
  • Any sites that offer end-to-end encryption (Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter) should be set to private and direct message capabilities from non-connections should be turned off.
  • Ensure children have a trusted and responsible adult (who isn’t a parent) they can turn to for advice and concerns. This can keep them from turning to adults they’ve met online for support. It may also afford them the necessary feeling of safety to surface concerning online interactions before they turn into exploitation or sextortion.

MANAGING EVIDENCE: WHAT TO DO WHEN THE WORST HAPPENS

As with any other crime, evidence retention for reports of predation is both key and time-sensitive. Ensuring that parents and children know to end engagement, document previous interactions, and save everything (including photos sent and received, chat logs, usernames, personal information shared and received, etc.) is just as necessary as teaching prevention tactics. While prioritizing prevention tactics makes sense as it may save a child from exploitation, it’s equally important that law enforcement, parents, and children know what to do immediately after the victimization is discovered. The steps families take next may impact prosecutorial ability and inadvertently perpetuate future victimization. A parent’s instinct could be to demand the perpetrator never contact their child again, block them and delete every social media account in the family. Therefore, it is vital that response tactics are taught to families and children to maintain quality evidence.

With technology weaving itself into every facet of our lives, even those of us who are professionally attuned to spotting wolves in sheep’s clothing can fall victim to sophisticated tactics. Our best chance for combatting the issue of online exploitation is continued vigilance. We, as investigators and parents, need to remain educated on the tactics leveraged by predators, such as preferred sites, effective fake profile development, and successful grooming measures. We need to build relevant and evolving prevention training on evidence-backed grooming tactics and ensure families and law enforcement receive appropriate response guidance just as often and insistently as prevention preparation. As painful as this issue is, this problem likely will never go away, so it is up to all of us to remain on guard for our children. Because every child deserves to grow up free of exploitation.

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About the author

Jessica Smith is a cyber security analyst, currently working within the private sector, focused on curating intelligence for organized financial crime investigations. Jessica earned her B.S. in Psychology and Criminal Justice from Hamline University as well as an M.S.in Criminal Justice from Metropolitan State University in Minneapolis. Jessica holds certifications in interviewing and interrogation from Century College, as well as a Social Media Intelligence Expert (CSMIE) and Cyber Intelligence Professional (CCIP) from McAfee Institute. In addition to her current role as a cyber security analyst, Jessica serves as the Special Investigations Lead for the National Child Protection Task Force, managing cases with high levels of sensitivity, complexity and longevity.