Australia Broadcasting Corporation:
Concerns raised over policing of internet paedophilia
Broadcast: 21/08/2007
Reporter: Suzanne Smith
TONY JONES: Earlier this month the Prime Minister made a strong pitch for the votes of middle Australia, with a $189 million package to provide a free internet filters for every family.
Mr Howard's offer represents another defensive weapon for parents and authorities in their battle with online predators.
The key to keeping ahead of these tech-savvy paedophiles is to know their behaviour and recognise how they are using the net to get access to children.
But there are concerns tonight that the Australian Federal Police, who are part of a virtual global task force, are playing catch-up when it comes to internet policing compared to overseas authorities.
The AFP will get a funding boost as part of Mr Howard's internet initiative.
In a moment we'll talk to Jim Gamble, the UK police expert who set up the virtual global task force. First this special report by Lateline's Suzanne Smith.
SUZANNE SMITH: The internet is one of humanity's greatest achievements, but it has a dark underbelly.
JULIAN SHER, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: You would never let your child of 11 years old, or 12 years old - much less nine years old - go out to the park at 11 o'clock at night, or 10 o'clock at night when its dark and yet parents think of nothing letting their younger child surf the internet alone unsupervised in the basement, in a closed room.
SUZANNE SMITH: Julian Sher, a Canadian investigative journalist, has just published this book: "One Child at a Time". He says 85 per cent of US perpetrators convicted for online offences had also molested children.
JULIAN SHER: We are talking about the rape and abuse and torture of innocent children. So these are crimes in photos. So you are committing a crime, you are furthering the abuse of a child just by looking at these pictures. But even if you say, I'm just looking at the pictures, the problem is, that is not true. It becomes a fuel for offending.
SUZANNE SMITH: The head of Queensland's Child Exploitation Unit, which hunts down paedophiles on the internet, agrees.
ACTING INSPECTOR JONATHAN ROUSE, TASKFORCE ARGOS: When you are dealing with images and video - full motion video with audio attached to it - depicting two and three year olds being violently raped, when you can hear their voices, the screams of pain, and you can see the offender's face in those videos - yes. I would say to you that myself and all of my colleagues around the country on a daily basis have seen evil, and looked it in the eye.
YOUTUBE VIDEO CAMPAIGN: Meeting a teen girl online is actually pretty easy. You can go into any chatroom and just start talking. Most of the girls are usually so insecure and desperate for attention. ...Attention from older guys is totally flattering.
SUZANNE SMITH: This video reveals actual conversations recorded between paedophiles and young children in chat rooms by police.
YOUTUBE VIDEO CAMPAIGN: Meeting them is the goal. Once I get them out of their house, well, that's when things get really interesting.
SUZANNE SMITH: The video was made by YouTube as part of a campaign that starts next month to teach kids about the dangerous side of the internet. Campaigns aside, the techniques of the savvy online child predator are constantly evolving, often putting them one step ahead of the authorities.
Police say the most immediate threat is the increasing popularity of wireless internet, which allows abusers to use their laptops in hard to trace public places.
ACTING INSPECTOR JONATHAN ROUSE: What that provides them with is absolute anonymity when they're accessing the internet.
SUZANNE SMITH: Mobile phones also pose a significant advantage to paedophile networks, because police can't track and retrieve the transmission of live images sent between them.
There is an international policing effort to curb the use of the internet by abusers.
The virtual global task force, which includes the Australian Federal Police, works closely with the corporate giants of the internet, including Microsoft. Its Child Exploitation Tracking System, otherwise known as CETS, is funded by Bill Gates himself.
JULIAN SHER: Bill Gates gets the Canadian Microsoft team to meet with the Toronto police. The Toronto police then call in the American police, the Australian police, the British police. They meet with the Microsoft technicians. They needed a data base that could take all these pieces together, these secret passwords and names and email addresses. And so CETS, as it became known - Child Exploitation Tracking System - is now operating in more than half a dozen countries, it's being rolled out around the world, in the Third World, all through Europe, and it's already lead to the arrest of more than 60 offenders and the rescue of more than 40 children.
SUZANNE SMITH: But CETS is not operating yet in Australia. Microsoft engineers came to Australia last year to demonstrate the system to the AFP. Queensland police say the delay is unfortunate but not a serious setback.
ACTING INSPECTOR JONATHAN ROUSE: I wouldn't say that it's hampering our ability to effectively infiltrate and dismantle these child sex offender networks but what it will do is certainly enhance our ability to do that. And it will also enhance our ability to do that at an international level. Certainly, on a daily basis now, law enforcement in this country is dealing with law enforcement officers from around the world that are fighting this crime. But with the implementation of a program like CETS we'll be able to do that from our desktops with a web interface.
SUZANNE SMITH: But the AFP promises the tracking system will be operating soon. And denies it is taking too long to set up.
KEVIN ZUCCATO, AFP HIGH TECH CRIME UNIT: The reason for the delay in relation to getting CETS up and running is predominantly due to the creation by the Australian High Tech Crimes Centre of the infrastructure needed to support it. The Australian High Tech Crimes and (inaudible) and fully committed to the utilisation of CETS.
SUZANNE SMITH: Australia is also behind in another area of internet policing. When an online abuser is arrested and his computer seized, it triggers a worldwide response. The photos of his victims are crossmatched with data on police computers around the world. But in Australia we are yet to create a national image data base that combines all state and federal police data.
The need for a national image data base in Australia became obvious in 2004 when a US police operation code-named 'Falcon' sent the AFP the names of 700 Australians who were suspected of downloading child pornography. Author Julian Sher claims that the majority of these suspects were never properly investigated by Australian police, due in part to the volume of material and legislative impediments which delayed access to search warrants.
ACTING INSPECTOR JONATHAN ROUSE: In Operation Falcon, eight children in Queensland were rescued and identified as having been sexually abused. Across the rest of the country, I'm only aware of one other child, and that was in Western Australia, that was rescued in that operation. Now that for me that is a clear indicator that we failed quite badly in that operation and we need to be smarter about the way we do business.
KEVIN ZUCCATO: My understanding in relation to the names that were provided, the details that were provided to the Australia High Tech Crime Centre is that every individual who could be identified, the information was disseminated to the states and territories for follow-up action.
SUZANNE SMITH: The AFP denies that the absence of a national image data base in Australia hinders the global policing of child abuse.
KEVIN ZUCCATO: We all have our own data bases where we collect and place the images into. but for a, it's very complicated to get all of those data bases put into the one data base, if you will. But work on that is continuing, and we are committed to a national data base.
ACTING INSPECTOR JONATHAN ROUSE: What you have to remember with the role of the AFP in this crime is that they are new to it. They only came in to this crime type in 2005. Yes, OK, the AFP are playing catch-up but they are catching up very rapidly.
SUZANNE SMITH: Australian and UK police say the best weapon against predators is informed parents and children, and the setting up of this abuse button in the UK, available on the virtual global task force website, is helping to stop abuse at it's source - the internet.
JULIAN SHER: You click that button, you will be forwarded right away to a police officer who can take your information, who can gather the information, and if necessary proceed with an investigation and arrest somebody.
SUZANNE SMITH: The same abuse button exists on the Australian Federal Police website, with direct access to an AFP officer. Just one more tool to empower kids to say no.
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200708/r170339_638826.asx
rtsp://media1.abc.net.au/reallibrary/lateline/200708/20070821-late-porn_16_9_bband.rm
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s2011385.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s2011385.htm