PROOF YOUR FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHS ARE NOT SAFE ONLINE
Disturbing predators’ site has pictures of children in school uniforms
HUNDREDS of pictures of Irish children – taken in school uniforms, ballet outfits and Irish dancing dresses – are being viewed on a Russian website used by child predators.
Many of the images, mainly of preteen girls, have been uploaded from Facebook and Snapchat without the knowledge of the children or their parents, a cyber-security expert has revealed.
And some of the images are filed under disturbing headings such as ‘Irish, sexy and not even 13 yet’ with perverts posting comments underneath describing what they’d like to do to the children.
Shockingly, this sinister activity is all being done under the guise of legality, making prosecution very difficult.
The worrying revelations by Pat
McKenna of Childwatch.ie that even those proud ‘first day of school’ snaps that parents post of their children online are potential fodder for paedophiles, come as the Garda unit tasked with tackling child abusers plans to expand its school uniform database.
This system was set up by the force’s special Victims Identification Unit to identify child victims in photos and videos, and it is now set to be broadened to include cheerleading and GAA clubs.
Pat McKenna of Childwatch.ie says there are ‘hundreds of pictures of Irish children’ on the Russian website, which the Irish Daily Mail is not naming.
‘They have been uploaded to what is regarded as a legitimate photo-sharing site,’ he said. ‘Users (of the site) deal either in nude imagery that is not created for sexual purposes – such as a family snap of a child in a bath, for example – or non-nude imagery.
‘This may be gleaned from social media pages, private family photos, or images specifically created to exploit children who would wear sexually attractive attire or pose in a sexually oriented fash- ion. There are images on this site that have clearly been taken from Snapchat and Facebook. Some of the users create fake profiles on Snapchat and Instagram and get these children to send images that ultimately end up being uploaded and shared elsewhere.’
Users, some with IP addresses in Ireland, are re-posting innocuous photos of children taken from Facebook, Instagram and other social media accounts.
But pictures of children doing perfectly normal things – a snapshot of a child at a gymnastics performance, a toddler playing with a doll – are regularly stolen and transferred to child sexual abuse imagery sites and photosharing websites used by adults with a perverse interest in children, warns Mr McKenna.
In some cases, the images are being doctored, so that the head of the child is pasted on to another child’s naked body.
During an interview with the Irish Daily Mail, Mr McKenna showed this paper dozens of pictures of Irish children that have been uploaded to the Russian website. Some of the photo galleries had titles that included ‘Irish, sexy and not even 13 yet. Wow – all under 13 and from Limerick’, ‘Irish school kids,’ and ‘Irish dancers’.
Many images were Snapchat selfies with the site’s recognisable emojis present on the screen.
Mr McKenna said once the images end up on these websites, it’s hard to get them taken down.
‘Many of them would not be deemed pornographic, but the comments below them from users, about what they would like to do to the child, most definitely are,’ he said. ‘Some of these users would go on to Facebook or Snapchat, create fake accounts and befriend children online. They then get them to send pictures that are uploaded elsewhere.’
Detective Sergeant Mary McCormack, who heads up the Garda’s Victim Identification Unit, pointed out that the Russian site is ‘not an illegal sharing site’.
And as the Mail continues our Protect Our Kids Online campaign to have an age restriction enforced on internet devices such as smartphones, she warned: ‘Parents need to be very aware of what their children are doing online.’
She said the images being used for paedophiles’ pleasure can be plucked easily from photo-sharing sites, and that parents also need to be careful about what images they post on social media.
‘Any site that people have access to can become a hub for these people,’ she said.
The VIU was set up to help pinpoint where potentially inappropriate images or videos of Irish children may have originated. At present, it concentrates mainly on images that have been forwarded to them from other members or police forces outside the State.
‘This is the problem,’ said Det Sgt McCormack, in relation to images of children that have appeared legally on the Russian website. ‘Under Irish legislation, there is a specific definition of what these types of images are. That is the problem. Unless we see the images and know whether they are child exploitation or child pornography then they don’t fall under the remit of the Act. ‘Those are the images we would target because those children are in situations where they are maybe undressed or engaged in a sexual act. They are the images we would concentrate on.’
But Det Sgt McCormack added that although the image alone may not be classified as ‘illegal’, the comments attached to it can be, meaning the comments posted beside the images could deem them child porn. The VIU has set up a nationwide database of uniforms to allow the swift identification of Irish children in images. It will be expanded to include other organisations with crests such as dance groups, Scouts and Cubs.
DUE to the widespread incidence of cyberhacking, the sensible advice is that no-one should write anything in an email that they wouldn’t be happy for the rest of the world to see. It goes without saying the same principle applies to social media, even if all the relevant privacy settings are in place.
Yet there is a new threat out there that we should all be aware of. As reported in this newspaper, hundreds of photographs of Irish children have appeared on a Russian website that is clearly targeted at sexual predators.
Many of these pictures were taken from the likes of Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. According to experts, some of them have since been doctored to make them appear pornographic.
But most are of innocent-looking images of youngsters – mainly girls of pre-teen age – in Irish dancing dresses, school uniforms and ballet costumes.
If the photos themselves are innocuous, however, many of the comments posted alongside them are anything but.
Accordingly, it is important that parents remember to exercise caution when they are sharing pictures of their children on social media sites. The sad truth is that we live in a world where dark forces abound and, disturbingly, are capable of taking warped pleasure from even the most wholesome of images.
But it is even more crucial that those same parents raise this issue in the strongest possible terms with their offspring. It hardly needs spelling out that youngsters of every hue, even older teenagers, are naive by nature. They are also prolific users of social media, particularly when it comes to posting photos of themselves and their friends. So they need to be made aware of the potential dangers attached to sharing even the most normal material.
The Irish Daily Mail makes no apology whatsoever for continuing to campaign in favour of age restrictions on owning smartphones. We have repeatedly highlighted the threat of youngsters being exposed to online grooming, as well as the increased risk of anxiety, depression and suicide.
As revealed today, however, there is also the very real possibility of perfectly harmless images being pored over by vile members of the global paedophile community.
Nobody disputes the positive side of the internet, but nor should we forget that it is also a very dangerous place. And one of the most effective ways of protecting our children from its negative aspects is by keeping smartphones out of their hands.