Boycott tech giants over abuse, says police chief
A SENIOR police chief urged the public to boycott big tech companies as he warned that forces do not have the capacity to investigate platforms that host child abuse images online.
Simon Bailey, the Norfolk Chief Constable and the lead on child protection for the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said his officers did not have the time to crack down on sites such as Google and Facebook because they were arresting 400 abusers every month.
His warning came after Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, revealed that some abusers paid just £12 to watch children being mistreated online and were even able to choose the hair colour and clothes worn by their victim.
The problem was getting worse as many perpetrators used sites hosted outside the UK or swapped images on the so-called dark web, making it more difficult for them to be tracked down.
Mr Javid warned that he would bring in tough new laws to force Google, Twitter, Facebook and others to remove abuse images and videos unless they did something to tackle the crimes themselves. But campaigners said more needed to be done to educate children and parents about the dangers posed by online forums and social media, where thousands of youngsters are targeted every year.
Mr Javid told ITV News his children were banned from taking their smartphones and tablets to their bedrooms at night and positioned the family computer in the middle of the home so he could walk past and keep track of what his children were doing. He said family friends were not aware of the dangers and that he had talked to them about basic steps they could take to protect their children.
He vowed to do everything in his power to stop abusers from finding victims online as he said some children were being groomed in just 45 minutes in online chat rooms.
But Mr Bailey admitted that police were already struggling to cope with the scale of abuse and called on parents to do more to help force big technology companies to step up.
Asked why the police were not cracking down on tech giants, Mr Bailey said: “We are arresting 400 almost exclusively men every month, safeguarding 500 children every month. We have our hands full just dealing with the volume of offenders.”
He told the BBC that the public could help by “boycotting certain products” and named Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple and Twitter as major concerns for those trying to crack down on child abuse online.
“We have overwhelming evidence that abuse continues to take place on online platforms. This is nowhere near good enough.”
♦ Police will be given more freedom to stop and search suspects, it was reported last night.
Sajid Javid is said to be preparing a public consultation that would see officers able to stop acid-carrying suspects, The Times reported, following a surge in attacks.
The Home Office said it was looking at ways to “strengthen police powers”.
Officers currently have to believe a suspect is carrying a prohibited article, such as a knife, and that they may cause injury to carry out a search.