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<strong>Child</strong> PornograPhy First report oF the Dutch NatioNal rapporteur
activities in relation to tackling child pornography that are carried out by the multi-disciplinary team
of the KLPD under the management of the team leader from the THTC are temporary in nature, and are
primarily focused upon perpetrators, which has added a further dimension to the entire work process.
Focus
<strong>Child</strong> abuse material in the hands of the police is proof that sexual abuse has taken place. The focus in the
criminal investigation must still be upon victim identification, however. That is also the case in theory, but
practice has shown that this approach is successful in only a few cases. The police have little information
a priori in relation to a potential perpetrator and it is often nothing more than an Internet identity. The
information that they obtain is only an IP address at which activities connected with child pornography
take place. It is not known whether (a) victim(s) is/are involved at this point. However, the police are
confronted with hundreds of proposals for investigation every year. It is consequently difficult to achieve
the shift in focus from tackling possessors to actually tackling the producers. As a result of this difficulty,
searching for victims of sexual violence via the Internet is not very effective. 356 Conversely, every victim who
is found means that the effort expended is justified and the new structure may perhaps offer a solution.
Method of working and organisation
A number of possible suggestions could provide a solution to the aforementioned bottlenecks. First of all,
the new structure should certainly combine sex offence specialisms with digital and tactical expertise. The
use of additional capacity is essential in this regard. The Minister of Security and Justice has announced that
additional capacity will be made available to tackle child pornography. 357 The way in which this capacity
is to be divided up must be taken into account. The pooling of expertise and competencies could also improve
efficacy. The multi-disciplinary team of the KLPD under the management of the team leader from the
THTC used a perpetrator-orientated approach (analysis of e-mail and chatroom traffic of perpetrators) and
the TBI employed a primarily victim-orientated policy (mostly analysis of the images). 358 Perpetrator and
victim-orientated detection activities should be combined at a single site, in which the competencies in the
digital domain should be merged with sex offence specialisms. Perpetrator networks must be fully investigated,
as part of which the children appearing in images of sexual abuse must also be taken into account.
Seizure of data storage media
Secondly, parties must seek alignment with cases of sexual abuse, in which data storage media must always
be seized. After all, seeking to identify victims via the Internet is not always effective and it frequently occurs
by chance. 359 The Implementation Provisions concerning child pornography now state that when forms
of sexual violence against children are reported, the possibility that child abuse material may have been
produced must be taken into account at all stages of the investigation, and a search must be carried out,
if possible. Although an Appendix 360 of the current Implementation Provisions concerning public decency
356 However, the investigation of the Amsterdam sexual abuse case began with found images, and gave
rise to new investigations into abuse that actually did take place.
357 Parliamentary Papers II 2010/11, 32 500, no.106.
358 TBI also carries out investigations of perpetrators on the Internet.
359 In the 1980s, it was also recommended that when the police encountered a case of sexual abuse involving
children, they should be prepared for the possibility that child abuse material had been produced and that
they were required to conduct a search of the dwelling at the earliest possible stage (see 2.2 and §3.5.1).
360 Appendix 2, content of an informative interview.