Digital Safety with Internet Crimes Against Children Specialist Allyson Morin

So it's very important.

And I've become very

passionate about it and I can't shut up about it, which is why I'm here today.

This podcast is going to be like three hours long.

That's okay.

In your role, I know you see a lot of, as you said, different kinds of victimization with children online.

Can you give some examples of things that you've seen?

Again, I'm going to say that it can vary significantly.

So it can be something as simple as like kids receiving inappropriate photos or solicitations or online to grooming that starts online that leads to an in-person encounter all the way to like sextortion which we can definitely talk about on this podcast but that's basically a child being extorted for either more photos of themselves others sexual favors money whatever it may be which is a very serious crime and something unfortunately we see happening more and more

Yeah,

absolutely.

Thank you

so much for sharing those.

Something I like to talk about is commonalities, things that maybe people can look out for or things that you're kind of seeing often.

Are there any kind of trends of internet crimes that you're seeing that may be on the rise?

Definitely sextortion overall.

I think any person who works within the space of internet safety and online crimes against children can say that sextortion has significantly grown over the past couple years.

And unfortunately, it often goes, it happens so quickly.

And the rates of child suicide related to that is very high.

So you often will see those cases in the news.

But I know like the statistics on those cases that are reported to the cyber tip line through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

We'll talk more about that.

But you know, those have, I think, I can't remember off the top of my head right now.

But I know that the percentage of those cases has almost quadrupled just in the past couple years just because you know it's not just a certain population of exploiters or criminals that are seeking those children out you know it's not necessarily for the benefit of child sexual abuse material or you know seeing kids inappropriately or anything like that but it's also for that that monetary piece which is A lot of people are targeting children for that.

So sextortion is definitely a huge one.