TOP GARDA WARNS OF RANGE OF NET CRIME
Posting pictures of children online leads to potential for predators to exploit them
ONE of the country’s top gardaí has warned there is a ‘range of crimes’ which can take place over the internet, each as dangerous as the other for children.
Detective Superintendent Declan Daly of the Garda National Protective Services Bureau, who helped to convict paedophile Matthew Horan, said there are a number of areas that threaten children.
Speaking at Denis Naughten’s Open Policy Debate on online safety yesterday, Det. Supt Daly said: ‘They range from children uploading self-generated images online to people who have a sexual interest in children, grooming and exploiting children online.
‘Sexual exploitation online is very very prevalent. People pretend to be children when they are really adults. They expose children and get images and then use those images to blackmail children for more images or to meet for sexual purposes. It’s all very dangerous. We are recommending that children are aware. Our awareness raising and media campaigns are really important, and that children and parents are educated.’
Speaking at the debate on online safety yesterday in Dublin, Supt. Daly told those in attendance that children need to be made aware of the dangers, and engaging in such measures would mean children were less likely ‘to fall into a trap of being exposed’.
‘I think that is the key message from today,’ he said. ‘From the actions that come out of today, they have to be practical.
‘They have to be workable on the ground, it’s not a paper-based exercise. We want An Garda Síochána and the other agencies to make big inroads to protecting children online.’
Supt Daly warned parents that posting images of children online is ‘exceptionally dangerous’ and that even pictures that appear innocent can be used in a dangerous way.
‘As I said, it’s a very difficult incident [images discovered online] when it happens to a family, when a child uploads an image, and that image goes viral, they may not know that they uploaded that image and [that] it’s gone so widespread in terms of exposure, that they sent it to someone in another jurisdiction or closer to home.’
He underlined his advice, addressing parents directly by saying: ‘Don’t post any image online that is sexually explicit, it’s simply very very dangerous. Once it’s gone, you have lost control of it. That’s even kids in baths and stuff that might seem innocent.
‘Posting images online is exceptionally dangerous and you’ve lost control of that image once it’s gone. Even if you post it to a friend or a partner, that means any explicit image.’
Meanwhile, he added: ‘Children should not upload those images.’
During a panel discussion with Google’s Ryan Meade, Tanya Ward of the Children’s Rights Alliance and Áine Lynch from the National Parents Council, Supt Daly said that it was a ‘good day’ to see the opening up of conversation on online safety.
He discussed work being undertaken by the Garda Protective Services Bureau and in particular, Operation Ketch.
Last month, more than 30 homes in 12 counties were searched as part of an investigation into the possession and distribution of child abuse images.
Operation Ketch was set up to target people suspected of possessing and distributing child exploitation images. Gardaí also received information from law enforcement authorities in the US and Canada, and secured warrants in court to search addresses in Ireland. Computers, phones, iPads, laptops, documentation and other material has been seized.
The operation had served as a stark warning to those who possess, distribute or produce such imagery that their homes would be searched, their sexual interest in children would be exposed, and ultimately that they could be prosecuted and convicted.
The message was reiterated at yesterday’s Open Policy Debate, where Supt Daly warned predators that a ‘knock was coming to the door’. ‘Ketch is what we are doing on a daily basis… [it] was designed to show the communities at large the importance of targeting individuals. It’s important to show perpetrators there’s a knock coming to your door.
‘Education and awareness is vitally important particularly with online grooming where children are targeted by paedophiles that they can meet up with those children for the purpose of sexual encounters. What happened in recent cases, you can see the dangers there – it’s not just limited to certain types of people,’ he said.
He noted that large corporations such as Facebook and Google have been helpful to gardaí when it comes to initial investigations.
‘You have people pretending to be a 15-year-old boy or a young girl, but who is in fact a middleaged man or paedophile and he is pretending to be someone he’s not, to get images or to meet that person. One of the worrying aspects is that sometimes we see young people themselves targeting each other that way.’
The growing phenomena of ‘sex mania’ where perpetrators obtain images from young victims with the intention of blackmailing them was also of concern, he said.
‘It can be horrific stuff for the child. You can imagine as an adult how if someone had an image of you and was threatening to put that image on social media, how stressed out you would be. Imagine if you were a 13-year-old girl or boy the stresses that would be there. What is important is that the communication pathway is open, and that the child that receives that approach knows where to go,’ he said. Comment – Page 16 sean.dunne@dailymail.ie
‘Even images that seem innocent’