It found that technology is allowing offender
communities to organise at an unprecedented scale using
the dark net and anonymous communication software.
The Threat Assessment will be presented by Minister for
Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability, on Wednesday
afternoon at the Agenda 2030 for Children: End Violence
Solutions Summit (‘the Solutions Summit’) in Stockholm,
which is co-hosted by the WePROTECT Global Alliance,
the Partnership to End Violence Against Children’ and
the Swedish Government.
The Minister said:
Online child sexual exploitation is heinous crime
which has a truly devastating impact on its victims.
We cannot allow any corner of the internet to be
looked upon as a safe space for these despicable
predators to gather, share indecent images or prey on
our children.
The NCA continues to lead operations against dark net
criminals, including joint operations with
international law enforcement and industry. We have
committed £20 million over the spending review period
to the NCA, plus additional funding of £10 million
for specialist teams. This has led to near doubling
of their investigative capability which will lead to
more children being protected and more offenders
brought out of the shadows and to justice.
The UK continues to lead international action on
online child sexual exploitation through the
WePROTECT Global Alliance, in addition to committing
£40million over four years to the End Violence
Against Children Fund, as well as investing in new
technology to find and remove more illegal imagery of
children than ever before.
The report also found that the growing ownership of
mobile devices, expansion of high speed internet and
ubiquity of encrypted communications technology is
allowing offenders from anywhere in the world to target
children.
The Threat Assessment, which brought together existing
research as well as data from such sources as the US
Department of Justice and INTERPOL, also found that:
-
Individual dark net sites are hosting up to
1million paedophiles, who regularly meet to plan
and encourage online abuse and share up to 1.6m
files.
-
Increasingly offending is now committed entirely
online, with offenders coercing and extorting
children into producing indecent images of
themselves via webcams.
-
As our children get older, their access and
competence in the use of technology increases - as
do the range of threats they face.
-
The presence of a video camera on every device and
computer has seen peer to peer image sharing make
way for the increasing threat of live streaming.
Launched by the UK Government in 2014, the WePROTECT
Global Alliance is a global movement that brings
together the influence, expertise and resources
required to transform how online child sexual
exploitation is dealt with worldwide.
