How your children can be duped online... and they may not even know
Paedophiles are using new video-chat sites to obtain child images
CHILDREN are being exploited by predators lurking on randomised video-chat websites, without them even knowing it, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Gardaí are aware of a number of disturbing incidents around the country of children being duped into sharing images or videos online which are later downloaded or shared by paedophiles.
In one case, the MoS has learned that a man has been caught with hundreds of images of young boys that he obtained by using the popular video-chat website, Omegle.
The man passed a clip of a young girl stripping off as a live video and encouraged young boys who watched it to do the same. He then used screen-grabbing technology to download videos and images of the young boys.
Randomised video-chat websites have been around since Chat Roulette was launched in 2009. Chat Roulette currently has developed an X-rated reputation and the site discourages teenagers from using it.
It is the next generation of similar sites that is most worrying, according to Jim Harding from cyber-watchdog group Bully4U.
Mr Harding told the MoS he has serious concerns that video-chat websites are being exploited by paedophiles to ‘obtain and coerce’ images. He called on the State to ‘block’ websites which allow predators to exploit children.
Mr Harding, who estimates that a third of Irish teenagers and some primary school children are aware of Omegle, called on politicians to intervene four years ago, but to date, he says, nothing has been done.
‘There is technology to block sites, why can’t we do this to protect our children from paedophiles?’ he asked.
A source told the MoS these websites and apps are based on the same principle of ‘randomly meeting people online’ but warned that any app that allows you to chat with a stranger is a ‘danger to children’.
‘They all have the seedy underbelly and there is a fair amount of exploitation of children on it,’ the source said. ‘With regard to Omegle, you can go onto the video chat and play a pre-recorded video and pass it off as a live chat.
‘Predators are downloading videos of girls, 18 or 19, from pornography websites. A teenage boy goes on Omegle, clicks on a few videos and then all of a sudden there is a teenage girl dancing in front of him.
‘The girl starts stripping and the boy starts doing the same thing, but the guy at the other end has some screen-grabbing technology and is recording what the boy is doing.
‘The boys are being exploited and they don’t even realise it. They don’t realise they are being recorded by a paedophile.’ Our source added that underage boys are ‘caught out a lot’.
He said another app called Oovoo is also being used and added that when some young boys are asked to exchange images, they ‘are a bit suspicious, but on the promise of a picture of a girl’s breasts, the boys will come back with, “Have you Snapchat or Oovoo?” Kik is also mentioned quite a bit.’
Kik and Snapchat are free instantmessaging apps.
The source added: ‘These predators are so smart when it comes to keeping up to date on what the children are downloading.’
‘Why can’t we protect our children?’