Australia's cyber-predator threat

WATODAY.COM.AU

An online sexual predator who flew to Westeran Australia and was caught climbing into a child's window is one of many disturbing cases recently revealed by Australian police.

This incident, along with the sharp increase in the number of social networking sites and chat rooms on the internet, has prompted Australia's cyber police to again warn parents about the dangers of not keeping an eye on their children's internet use.

There are also calls for young people to stop sending sexually-explicit photographs of themselves to others - a phenomenon the Western Australian police online child exploitation squad refers to as 'sexting'.

This week, the squad revealed it had charged 53 people so far this year with more than 300 offences, including online grooming of children and supplying or possessing child exploitation material.

About 50 per cent of the charges concerned online grooming, and one-fifth of those involved real children and not police operatives.

It has been a hectic year for the squad and its acting officer-in-charge, Detective Senior Sergeant Sean Bell.

Comprising of 10 investigators in total, including Detective Bell and an undisclosed number of covert operatives - who pose as children in the online world as well as take part in investigations - the online child exploitation squad has to date this year spent more than 1000 hours online engaging 245 targets from WA.

"Targets are adults talking to children in a sexual manner," Detective Bell - who has been with the specialist group (including the child abuse squad) for three years - said.

"While they don't always commit offences, it's always a bit of a concern for us."

Targets who do not live in WA and commit serious offences are not let off the hook by the squad, rather their files are passed on to law enforcement agencies in the east coast and around the world.

This year, the online child exploitation squad - which began in March 2006 as the cyber predator team - has sent 36 jobs overseas to the USA and England among others and interstate to NSW, Queensland and Victoria.

And with every keystroke of the pedophile recorded on the computer, it is no surprise the squad has a 100 per cent conviction rate since its inception.

"We have never lost a trial," Detective Bell said. "Which is simply down to the fact that everything we do is recorded on a computer and it can't be disputed, so we've been very successful in that regard.

"Most of our offences are committed against the operatives (but) we do have a few real child incidents.

"What happens there is mum or dad will find out they've been chatting to someone and then we'll take over their online account and keep going pretending to be them or just get the chat logs or anything like that from the computer and charge the person based on that."

Detective Bell said some incidents the squad has dealt with this year showed why it was important for parents to monitor their child's social interaction online.

"We've had two fly over from the eastern states to try and meet the children," he said. "And one of those was a child operative, so they got a big surprise when they got introduced.

"Another we caught climbing in the window of a real kid's bedroom - he was a person flying over from NSW."

'There are literally hundreds of chat rooms out there'

Detective Bell said there were literally hundreds of chat rooms and social networking websites on the internet, including Facebook, MySpace, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Chat, mIRC and ICQ.

"Young users must be very careful of what information they do make public on profiles," he said.

"When you say what school (and sport clubs) you attend, it makes it pretty easy for someone to track you down.

"Predators know how to find this information."

Chat rooms themselves change from day to day, while the squad monitors seven or eight chat rooms on a regular basis.

"We'll get some information from someone...saying the person was talking to us rude, so we'll log on to that chat room and try and engage that person," he said.

"There are quite a few challenges for us. Social networking sites are expanding, as well as games and peer to peer chat as well.

"To monitor them all is a challenge."

What Detective Bell and his team are hoping to arrest is the disturbing rise in the 'sexting' phenomenon among teens. And he hopes the possible consequences will see youngsters put a stop to such activities.

"The fact is it's illegal if the people in the photos are under 16," he said.

"And kids don't realise that as soon as they send a picture of themselves to another, it can get on the internet.

"If people possess or send on these pictures, (they can get in trouble), and they will have to report to police regularly for the next four years.

"This affects their employment prospects, which is a big, big thing to be hanging around a 17-year-old's necks.

"So don't do it, the consequences can be devastating."

Another challenge for the squad, according to Detective Bell, is the number of devices people can access the internet with today.

"X-Box and Playstations (connected to the net) are used by predators as well," he said.

"It's only a matter of time (before children can be 'attacked' by predators in games). Covert operators are spending more time playing games as a result."

Some timely advice for keeping your child safe

Detective Bell said people - particularly parents - should not be afraid of the internet, and kids should not be discouraged from using it.

Computers should be kept in public places of the house and parents should warn kids of the dangers of who they are talking to, "as they may not be who they say they are".

"Children should also be reminded to not be afraid of letting parents know if the person they are talking to is doing anything inappropriate," he said. "They should be told they won't lose their privileges if this happens.

"The internet is not a dangerous place to be in, but people should just be careful of who is online.

"When you're talking to people, until you know who they are, treat them as strangers."

The online child exploitation squad works closely with the WA Education Department and the Australian Federal Police.

It is a member of the Virtual Global Task Force and has direct links with various law enforcement agencies around the world. The squad even had one inspector train with the FBI for six weeks.

As for what lies ahead in the online world, Detective Bell is confident his team can keep up with the predators.

"It's a rapidly changing environment but we change with it to suit (that)," he said.