NCJ Number
222963
Journal
Law Enforcement Technology Volume: 35 Issue: 4 Dated: April 2008 Pages: 10,12,14,16,18
Date Published
April 2008
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This article discusses sex predators' use of multimedia cell phones with Internet access in order to groom kids for sexual exploitation.
Abstract
Pedophiles are finding ways to avoid the security measures that parents and police are using to protect children and youth from seductive Internet communications transmitted through home computers. Sexual predators are shifting their contacts with kids to the ever-evolving cell phones that parents buy for their children in order to improve their children's safety. Because multimedia cell phones are small and children and youth have them at their disposal everywhere they go, their use is unsupervised by parents. This means that a child with a cell phone linked to the Internet has access to millions of strangers who also have access to them. With state-of-the-art cell phones, children can do virtually anything with them they can do with a home computer, including surfing the Internet, buying items, downloading music, and taking and sending pictures. In an effort to increase parental monitoring of children's cell phone use, eAgency has developed and begun marketing a commercial software application that allows parents to monitor their child's cell phone communications remotely. When installed on the child's phone, the software monitors all communications in and out. A copy of the phone transmissions is sent to eAgency's server in real time and stored. Parents gain access to the information through a Web site. This software can also be useful to law enforcement investigators when predators commit crimes against child users of the phone. In addition, the software application can be used by victims of domestic violence and stalking, as their cell phones become instruments for collecting audio, textual, and visual evidence of abuse and harassment.