sexual exploitation of children over the internet - Meldpunt ...

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eviews are as effective and aggressive as they can be. For example, at the June hearing,the social networking websites, particularly, MySpace, were asked if they screened theirsites for registered sex offenders. At that time, none of the social networking websitesconducted any type of screening for sex offenders on their websites. Now, almost sixmonths later, MySpace announced on December 5, 2006 that it was working to develop atechnology that will allow it to block convicted sex offenders from accessing MySpace.As the technology has yet to be implemented, its effectiveness remains uncertain. Evenso, it seems that the websites primarily rely on their users to ferret out and bringinappropriate content to their attention. As Facebook testified, they believe userreporting works best because Facebook users are best able to recognize individuals whodo not belong in their school communities and do not tolerate behavior or content thatdoes not meet the community’s standards. While Facebook is unique in that its userswebpages are organized according to high school, college, or regional communities andonly available to other users within the same community, Xanga also found that itsreporting or “flagging” system has proved reliable in identifying child pornography orother inappropriate content.Despite these safeguards, children’s webpages on social networking websites are stillvulnerable to child predators as the success of the safeguards largely depends on a child’sability to recognize a dangerous situation, and report it, or to affirmatively activate thesafeguards and privacy settings. The search functions of a website also pose a risk tochildren’s safety online. While Xanga and Facebook do not permit its members to searchother member’s webpages for personal characteristics, such as height, sex, or interests,MySpace users can search member profiles for a variety of factors including sex, age,marital status, body type, and interests. Though the webpages of MySpace users who areunder age 16 have a default privacy setting and, even if that setting is deactivated, theyare available only to other users under the age of 18, child users are still at some riskbecause the system can easily be manipulated by users who lie about their age. 21 It takesonly minutes to search for and find children who are under 16-years-old on MySpace.For example, Committee staff did a search on MySpace for persons 4’11” or shorter.This simple search uncovered numerous underage users who accurately stated theirheight in their profile, but who over-reported their age, a common tactic by underageusers to evade the MySpace age restrictions.Although all the social networking sites testified that they have been unable todevelop a viable age verification system to weed out underage users, it appears that withsome basic search techniques and development of more refined search algorithms, thesecompanies should be able to detect underage users and those violating their Terms of Usein a more effective fashion. The lack of effective methods for protecting the adolescentmembership of these websites, or limiting the websites to adults only, necessarily meansthat children are placed at risk of exposure to child predators. Social networkingwebsites could require a verifiable credit card in order to confirm the age of the user,however, credit card companies have resisted allowing their systems and databases to beused for such confirmation without a purchase first taking place.21 MySpace does not permit users who under the age of 18-years-old to specifically browse for users whoare 16-years-old or younger. In addition, adults can never browse for users who are 18-years-old or under.24
In addition, children often are not able to accurately assess the risk presented byrevealing personal information and communicating with individuals they meet in anonline community. Detective Frank Dannahey of the Rocky Hill, Connecticut PoliceDepartment testified at the Subcommittee’s June 28 hearing that children’s personalinformation was often easily available or readily volunteered on the MySpace webpageshe reviewed while conducting an experiment on Internet safety. This personalinformation included where the child lived, worked, the child’s full name and date ofbirth, and cellular and home telephone numbers. According to Detective Dannahey,teenaged users of social networking websites are often very trusting of the people theymeet online and do not perceive them as strangers but as friends. For this reason,teenagers are not able to recognize when they are sharing personal information that mightidentify them to a child predator. These characteristics necessarily undermine safeguardsystems that depend on a child’s ability to recognize and report inappropriate content.The risk posed to children by predators who are intent on communicating with themand befriending them online demands that Internet Service Providers and socialnetworking websites take an aggressive approach in developing safeguards to protectchildren. Already, since Committee staff began meeting with the ISPs and socialnetworking websites early in 2006, these companies have implemented severalimprovements to their systems. For example, when Committee staff first met withComcast, its data retention period for a customer’s IP address assignments was 30 days.Just prior to the June hearing, Comcast announced that it was increasing this dataretention period to six months beginning in September 2006. AOL, Yahoo!, Microsoft,and Earthlink announced that they were joining together to create the TechnologyCoalition at NCMEC, the purpose of which is to establish a central clearinghouse ofknown images of child pornography and to develop technology solutions to combatonline child pornography. Also, in response to staff concerns, Google strengthened itsadvertising policies to ensure that it was not accepting advertising from companies withlinks to websites that promote the sexual exploitation of children. Finally, as mentionedpreviously, MySpace recently announced that it will build a sex offender database inorder to screen its site for users who are also registered sex offenders.Following the June hearings, Committee staff traveled to the Netherlands andBelgium in order to meet with Dutch and European Union officials to discuss theirprogress in implementing a European Union data retention directive. The directive,which was issued on March 15, 2006, is broader than the policies discussed by theInternet Service Providers who testified at the Subcommittee’s June hearing because itapplies not only to data that links an IP address to a particular individual, but to networkand cellular telephones including the records of telephone numbers called and the dateand time of Internet access. Pursuant to the directive, European Union member countriesmust adopt a data retention policy of at least six months and no more than two years forthe data covered by the directive. Committee staff discussed with European Union andDutch officials the response of the European Member countries to the directive; thereaction of the Internet Service Provider industry; technical issues posed by the directive;and cost projections for implementing the initiative. According to the directive, Member25
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Page 6 and 7: found in 42 U.S.C. § 13032, crimin
Page 9: within the privacy of their home an
Page 12 and 13: clicks on his or her image, forward
Page 14 and 15: developed by the Department of Home
Page 16 and 17: majority of investigations — appr
Page 18 and 19: Ms. Fisher, Mr. Roldan, and Mr. Bel
Page 20 and 21: A recent proposal by NCMEC supports
Page 22 and 23: efforts with respect to child porno
Page 26 and 27: countries must have approved implem
Page 28 and 29: suggestion, NCMEC is working with s
Page 30 and 31: upon the burgeoning industry of dig
Page 32 and 33: Sex Sites on the Run, Nearly Nude P
Page 34: Krwawecz testified that, in his exp

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