Chapter 3 - Crime Areas

3.3 Child sexual exploitation online - Future threats and developments

Darknet platforms will grow in number and availability. The technical skills quickly adopted by most child sexual offenders, together with a conscious understanding of risks, will direct more offenders to environments where levels of privacy and anonymity are high.

The impact of increasing Internet adoption rates in developing countries has already been felt by some Member States and third parties. It is expected that offences such as live streaming of CAM for a fee, which is currently happening mainly from Eastern Asia, will become increasingly popular in other East Asian countries, as well as in African and South American countries, since it generates high revenues for the criminal groups exploiting the children and presents low risks. An increase in CAM featuring varied ethnic groups can also be expected.

Live streaming may become a preliminary step for travelling sex offences: offenders who engage, via technical means, in the on-demand abuse of a child in a foreign country could travel to the same country for hands-on abuse.

There will be an increase in the use of virtual currencies for CAM. Producers of CAM may realise that new virtual currencies such as Darkcoin offer further anonymity possibilities and that there is an additional opportunity for financial gain in the exchange of CAM.

There is an increasing trend in providing access to mobile devices to very young children. As children handle mobile devices that can both take pictures, produce videos and access social networks with little supervision, sexualised self-generated material, and thus opportunities for sexual extortion, could continue to increase. The already existing geo-location capabilities supported by the devices, and consequent geo-referencing of pictures and videos, also offer extended opportunities for offenders to physically locate children of their interest.

The expansion of the Internet of Everything and the interconnectivity of electronic devices will create new opportunities for child abusers, further expanding offenders’ access to images of children. There will be increased opportunities to hack into devices such as baby monitors and CCTV in schools and other facilities frequented by children. The increase in the availability of personal data will also enhance the possibility to forecast the personality traits, behaviour and location of people in general, offering more possibilities for paedophiles to research and engage with children.

There will be an increased use of technologies that facilitate the unnoticed recording and dissemination of images – the use of augmented reality wearable devices might facilitate the collection of children’s images and other personal details.

The Crime-as-a-Service (CaaS) business model of the digital underground will open up greater opportunities for offenders to access expertise and tools which can be used to gain access to victims, their data and devices.

Affordable access to remote storage, especially when associated with encryption, will provide extended security for offenders, as they can remove CAM remotely, whilst limiting law enforcement with regards to evidential capture and forensic analysis.