Parents need to be aware of internet risks
Last week a local teacher was arrested and charged with multiple child exploitation offences including possessing, accessing and distributing child pornography following an investigation by the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team’s Southern Alberta Internet Child Exploitation Unit. A number of the 37year-old’s computers and electronic devices were seized and are currently undergoing forensic examination. Additional charges are expected as the investigation progresses.
A second investigation by the Northern Alberta ICE Unit resulted in the arrest of an Australian man earlier this month who travelled to Canada to have sex with a 13-year-old Edmonton girl he met online. The investigation determined the two met via social media in October 2016 and engaged in regular sexually explicit chats and photo-sharing.
The 22-year-old man was arrested at an Edmonton hotel room after the victim’s mother discovered the online activity and contacted police. Members of the New South Wales Police Force assisted ICE by searching the man’s home in Chatswood — a suburb of Sydney, Australia — seizing a number of electronic devices for forensic analysis.
Over the past six years (2010-2016) the number of ICE investigations in Alberta has increased by 75 per cent according to ALERT’s 2015-16 Annual Report. Investigations are timeconsuming, complex and often involve multiple jurisdictions. The increase in child exploitation investigations in Alberta is on par with national growth as the internet has provided child sex offenders with more methods than ever before to connect with other predators and target victims.
ALERT Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) Units are situated in southern and northern Alberta and include Lethbridge Police, Calgary Police, Edmonton Police, Medicine Hat Police and RCMP. Their mandate is to investigate offences involving child pornography, any computer-related child sexual abuse, online child luring, voyeurism involving victims under the age of 18 and the child sex trade/sex tourism industry.
In 2015-16, ICE seized 700,000 child exploitation photos and videos, 1,765 exhibits and analyzed more than 225 terabytes of data which roughly equals 56 billion sheets of paper. But make no mistake, these aren’t just numbers. The hundreds of thousands of images and videos depict real children suffering unspeakable abuse and with every share, upload and view that child is victimized again and again.
While I would always encourage anyone with information about child exploitation offences to report them to LPS or their local police service immediately, one of the best resources in Canada for both information and reporting is
Established in 2002 by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, Cybertip.ca receives about 3,000 reports per month — information that is shared with law enforcement and child welfare agencies for follow-up investigation. I would strongly recommend everyone — but especially parents — take a look at this site as there’s a lot of internet safety information that is broken down in relation to kids under 11 and those 12 and over.
On Monday, March 13, I would also encourage you to attend the 4th Annual Internet Safety Night from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Yates. This free event is hosted by SafeNet Alberta, which includes members of the Lethbridge Police Service, Lethbridge School District 51, Holy Spirit School District, Palliser School District, Alberta Health Services, YWCA, Family Centre and London Drugs and will focus on internet and technology awareness with topics geared toward parents as well as educators and anyone else who works with young people.
You will learn more about the tactics online predators use to groom and build trust with their victims, the laws that are in place in Canada to protect children, increase your awareness about your child’s ✦use
of electronic devices — including the latest apps — and what conversations you need to have with your children.
Featured presentations include screen time addiction, social media and the law, what you need to know about your child’s first smartphone, cyber violence, texting and driving, how your children are hiding data and online predators. As parents and caregivers, we need to know how our kids are using the internet and social media, what we can do to protect them from child predators and how we can empower them to protect themselves.
To register for SafeNet Alberta’s Internet Safety Night on March 13 visit
www.SafeNetAB.com. If you can’t attend in person but don’t want to miss out, the event will also be livestreamed.