Photo-recognition tech leads to arrest on possession of child porn

Manchester, Conn. — Police said they and a special federal agent from the Department of Homeland Security used photo recognition technology to charge a man with child pornography offenses.

The man, Noah Mortimer, 20, of 11 Tanner St., was arrested Friday and charged with third-degree possession of child pornography. Police initially held Mortimer in lieu of a $35,000 bond, but a judge reduced that to $10,000 during his arraignment. Mortimer was released from custody and is next scheduled to appear in Manchester Superior Court on Nov. 14.

According to the warrant for his arrest, Department of Homeland Security Special Agent Ryan Mahar reached out to Manchester Police Detective David Miele in July with information about a possible child exploitation situation involving “Kik Interactive,” a messaging application popular with teenagers and young people.

According to the warrant, police agencies and private companies use a photo recognition program called PhotoDNA that aids in finding and removing images of child exploitation and pornography from the internet and social media platforms. Kik reached out to Mahar after PhotoDNA identified the sharing of child pornography on its platform, and Mahar used this information and user data from Kik to track a child exploitation image featuring a blonde female aged approximately 6 to 8 years old to Mortimer, the warrant says.

Mahar and Manchester police visited Mortimer, and he admitted to having images of child exploitation on his phone. He showed officers an image of two nude teenage females in his phone’s photo gallery and a few additional images in his deleted folder.

Mortimer explained to police that he had participated in a sex chat online before he began using Kik to have sexual conversations. Mortimer said he obtained legal pornography from Kik, but once received an image of a 12-year-old girl through the messaging application.

After that, Mortimer said he received child exploitation material about two times a week, and blocked the users who sent it to him. He later admitted to sending child exploitation images to other users as well.

Police confiscated Mortimer’s cellphone and found 29 unique images of child pornography. They also found seven images of child exploitative material that did not fall in the category of pornography.