Kik messaging app is haven for paedophiles, says police chief

KIK, the popular messaging app, is prone to abuse by paedophiles, a senior police chief has warned after the number of child abuse reports relating to the service quadrupled in the past two and a half years.

Chief Constable Simon Bailey, the child protection lead for the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), said “children are at risk” on the app.

The number of referrals police have received relating to the app for child abuse images and grooming has surged from a monthly average of 48 in 2016 to 195 this year, the NPCC said.

As a result, UK police forces have opened more than 1,500 investigations involving Kik so far this year.

Kik has around 300million registered users worldwide. It allows users to sign up without a phone number and then find and message other people via just their username. The Canadian company has a minimum age of 13 but does not verify users’ ages.

Mr Bailey said: “What you have got is people who can go on there and purport to be whoever they might want to be, and then you know what goes on in the background. Kik is an exemplar of what I would describe as terribly poor practice which gives paedophiles the confidence to go online and groom.” He added: “Children are at risk.” Kik said that it was spending £7.6 million on improving its safety measures. It said: “This is a priority for us. We want all users to be safe on Kik and will continue to make Kik a safe, positive and productive place for our users to interact.”