Cybercrime is growing fast, Greater Sudbury Police say, and includes everything from those fraudulent emails to horrific child abuse.
In a presentation to the police services board Wednesday, Det.-Sgt. Blair Ramsay said the number of online child abuse images known to police worldwide has grown from one million in 2008 to 45 million last year. And there are one million visits to the Darknet to child abuse forums every day.
Abuse is sometimes livestreamed, and some online video game sites act as a lure to young people. The U.S.-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said it received 3,000 reports of child exploitation in 1998; that grew to 18.4 million in 2018.
Greater Sudbury is one of 28 police forces in the province working together, supported by a $407,000 provincial grant.
Closer to home, police have created an Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) Unit that “works tirelessly to protect and rescue children from harm and to hold offenders accountable,” police said in a post on their Facebook page Wednesday.
“Currently, ICE has 17 outstanding cases to categorize, which involves over 10 million files of images and video,” the post said. “Needless to say, with the development and growth of technology, online exploitation of children is an ever-evolving and growing problem worldwide.
“As a community, it’s vital that we work together to protect our children from Internet exploitation, and all other forms of exploitation and abuse.”
The ICE unit monitors peer-to-peer networks and monitors online postings aimed at luring children, and follows up on information from local, national and international investigations.
The unit played a key role in 15 arrests involving 109 charges in 2017; 27 arrests and 149 charges in 2018; and 24 arrests and 149 charges so far this year. Each case takes up four to five months of staff time.
“As of October 2019, 26 forensic cases with 62 device examinations (are still) to be completed,” according to Ramsay's presentation. The unit is also working to classify 17 cases, which requires examining 10 million digital files.
To keep children safe, parents and guardians must ensure online safety measures are taken (https://www.cybertip.ca/app/en/) when a child has access to the Internet or any devices such as lap tops, smart phones, tablets or computers.
“In Ontario, it is the law to report suspected child abuse or neglect,” police said. “If you have reasonable grounds to suspect that a child is or may be in need of protection, you must report it to a children's aid society (CAS).
