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The ability to use a digital camera, a computer and a means of communication such as broadband connection to produce high quality images and distribute them has enabled an explosion of fun. Equally it has fueled a rapid rise in questionable or illegal use that directly affects people, particularly children.
Some time ago there was a phenomenon whereby people were being assaulted on the streets and this was captured on phone camera and uploaded to Internet sites for public viewing. A mobile phone with an internet connection is all that was required to achieve this, nothing else.
This has further evolved to boys and girls distributing images (including sexual) of themselves to each other and throughout a school or community. IT has equally enabled a form of bullying that is particularly invasive and hurtful, and it has created a situation where a person can assault a momentarily unattended child in a public venue and instantly record the even in still image of movie format and forward the resulting file to another person, or upload it to a staging server prior to instant distribution to an internet site.
Sexting and sex imagery produced by minors is an increasing headache for everyone involved in the protection of children, and of course for their parent(s). It is only surpassed by the use of a web cam on a laptop computer in a child’s bedroom. The mobile phone camera is often used for the up-skirt shot of the unsuspecting girl walking up the stairs. Or the toilet shot where the camera is held over the door of the lavatory. There are Internet sites out there that specialize in voyeur pictures of unsuspecting victims.
This form of abuse is rife on child sex sites where partial or complete nudity of young children is easily captured on camera. The ability to abuse a very young child sexually and record it on-camera with minimum risk of discovery is a very real problem. The only tangible realization that such an act has occurred is probably the distributed images of the event. Logically, how does an infant tell you that they have been sexually abused and that images of the event were taken?
The phone camera can also be used for bullying. When one person seeks to impose their will on another through bullying, the results can be particularly disturbing for the victim, and exasperating for a parent. Where imagery from a phone is introduced into the equation, either recording an instance of abuse, or an event that is a material factor in the abuse, the situation goes from bad to worse because once the image(s) is distributed on, it is unlikely that it will ever be contained. Thus an everlasting record exists that is hurtful and/or threatening to the victim, and the victim’s parents.
The mobile phone and its camera are fantastic tools. However there are few things that have been invented that cannot be misused and the mobile phone is therefore no different from pretty much anything else. However, in the field to child exploitation and sexual abuse it has proved to be an extraordinary threat to the safety of a child. And one of the main reasons why it is such a source of distress is the fact that images don’t come with a 24 hour self destruct mechanism.
They endure forever, long after the child has reached adulthood, and even beyond death. Please be aware of these dangers when your child is exposed to these new technologies.
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About the Author: Pat McKenna is an IT Security Consultant specializing in Child Safe Computing through ChildWatch.ie.
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