PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — At least once a week, if not more, KATU receives press releases from local law enforcement agencies announcing child sex crime busts. Many involve some form of luring or exploitation through a cellphone app or website.
Portland Police Bureau (PPB) Child Abuse Team Detective John Richardson said arrests for child sex crimes are increasing, but not nearly at the rate the crimes themselves likely are.
“We don’t have enough investigators to work on these cases right now. We investigate probably 20% of the cyber tips that come in just because we don’t have the manpower,” he said.
He said the increase is driven by the ease of access for predators, particularly as technology and tools like artificial intelligence become more sophisticated.
“I think that it’s just gotten much easier to find the material. The AI stuff has made it, I think a lot easier for people to start producing content,” Richardson said. “You used to have to actually have photos and videos back in the day.”
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Now, rather than taking the high-risk action of producing real content, predators can generate AI-created images and videos that Richardson said sometimes depict real children.
“We had cases recently in the last year where people have gone onto Facebook and gotten pictures of kids and then used AI to create CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) with it.”
One preventative measure Richardson suggests parents take is making sure all images of their children are private and shared only with trusted friends and family members.
While technology is creating access for predators, it often does not provide tools to investigate and prosecute these crimes, mainly because of laws protecting citizens’ privacy from technology that could be used for law enforcement surveillance. For example, Oregon law prohibits police agencies from using facial recognition software.
Richardson said that makes it much more difficult to determine whether content created by AI is based on real child victims.
Additionally, he said AI tools not currently used by police agencies could help scan seized cellphones, reducing the need for as much manpower.
“Everybody is very worried about the government kind of having too much information,” Richardson said. “But yeah, we’re in a really weird place right now where we’re trying to stay caught up.”
He pointed out that one thing to watch for is anime content, often created by AI, that could groom children by normalizing sexual relationships with adults.
“I think it is, it’s just a weird place now to where the stuff you look at online is, it’s not real but it looks real,” he said, pointing out that the same phenomenon is also creating a gateway for people to become predators.
“I’ve actually had cases where people, the suspects have told me like, ‘Oh, it’s just anime, I don’t have any real stuff on there.’ And the reality is there is real stuff that’s mixed in there,” he said.
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Richardson believes technology is not only making predatory actions and behaviors easier, but also potentially creating more predators. He pointed out that in conversations with people accused of creating or distributing CSAM, he has heard them describe a progression of behaviors that began with some kind of social media algorithm.
“I had a case, maybe it was last year, where I asked the guy kind of, ‘What led to this?’ And what he told me is, he said he always liked girls that were kind of 18,” he said. “In his case, he said that he remembered seeing videos of girls who were like 18 that were twerking and so he said that he would slow down and he would click on it. And then he started to notice that like the twerking videos that he was seeing, he was saying like that, there’s no way that girl’s 18, she’s much younger than that,” Richardson said.
As these predatory actions increase, he warned parents to stay alert by talking to their kids and monitoring their internet and phone use, particularly during the summer when children may be alone for most of the day.
He said one of the most common apps where he finds predators lurking is Snapchat.
“We’ve had other services where people that are preying on kids go, and they kind of take it over, and they make it not fun. But Snapchat has somehow remained used by kids today and it’s still very popular. I don’t know if that’s the feature that they think that stuff is gonna go away, which it never does go away and they think it does, but it doesn’t,” he said. “Just to give you an example of how out of control it is on there, one of the cases that I’m working right now, the guy that’s on there thinks he’s talking to a kid, but even the predators on there are being preyed on by people that are trying to solicit money from them. They’re trying to say that they’re gonna expose them for money or they’re saying, ‘If you send me money, I’ll give this stuff.’ And you can tell by looking at the account that these people are outside of the country. There’s so many predators on there that now other predators are preying on the predators.”
He warned parents to look at their children’s hidden apps folder to make sure apps they are not allowed to have are not downloaded. The folder is visible only if the child logs in using facial recognition or a phone passcode. For example, simply using the app search function to determine whether Snapchat is downloaded may not reveal that it is hidden in the folder.
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To check the hidden folder, type “hidden” in the app search bar and have your child log in using facial recognition.
Richardson also advised parents to directly ask their children whether they have ever been solicited online by someone they believe is an adult.
“When I get this data, I’m getting the suspect’s account info and the amount of like phishing messages these people send to kids! For the maybe one kid that the person’s like, ‘Can I send you a picture of my private parts?’ And the kid’s like, ‘OK, I guess,’ there’s like, there’s 30 times as many kids that are like, ‘No, leave me alone, you creep!’ And then it just kind of ends right there. So even if your kid hasn’t been victimized, I would say that there’s a very good chance that your kid has been contacted online,” Richardson said.
He noted that providing that information to law enforcement could prevent a predator from successfully exploiting another child.
Richardson also advised parents to be aware that predators can now use AI to make themselves look and even sound younger through chatbot dialogue features and AI-altered pictures.
“I recently had a case where an adult was using Snapchat and he was using the location feature and finding kids that were near him to chat and in real time. He was at a football game and, in real time, he was saying, ‘Oh, I’m at the game too,’ and was using stuff on his phone in order to make himself look younger. So he was actually real-time taking pictures of him at the game and I know him because he’s in his fifties, but the pictures that he’s sending back in the data that I got back from Snapchat is like a kid version of him,” Richardson said.
