The child porn the Horror, the Axel F. (Name changed) gets every day, has a lot of terrible Details: a birthmark, the Poster of a football team on the wall, a bread bag, the brand of a Stramplers. Everything is relevant for investigators in the KiPo (child pornography): “In principle, can help us every little thing, the fact regional to narrow down and identify the perpetrator or the victim,” says Axel F. (Name changed).
The LKA officials need to look at the pictures, where children – even infants – can be abused, exactly. He must could her screams in the Videos listen to, because running in the Background on the Radio or on a TV show the time of the murder. It is a Job that hardly anyone can endure – the but it must still be made.
“Some of the abominations you never forget. The images burn themselves into,“ says Axel F. The child porn analyser from the Cybercrime competence centre of the North Rhine-Westphalian office of criminal investigation, wishes to remain undetected. Too often, he has to get to the question already asked, who shoots everyone in the face of his Jobs immediately in the head: How you resist that? Axel F. says only: “Me, Tina (3 years), Leon (7 years), Mia (9 years old), Sasha (9 years) and Melanie (1 year) keep his head above water. I have you identified.“
child pornography: a 30 percent higher demand by Corona
12.262 cases of child pornography have been registered by the German police, according to the Federal criminal police office (BKA) in the year 2019. This represents an increase of nearly 65 percent compared to the previous year. 2020 is likely to further aggravate the Situation – also due to the Corona-pandemic: “Since the beginning of the Corona-crisis has increased the demand for Material that includes child sexual abuse, in some of the member countries up to 30 per cent,” warns the EU Commissioner for Ylva Johansson.
Sad child abuse Westphalia-the Hotspot in Germany: North Rhine-Westphalia. Again and again, the country has become in the past few years, the scene of terrible crimes against children. “But it’s important that you realize that NRW has no bigger Problem with abuse than other countries”, emphasized the cyber criminologist Thomas Gabriel Ruediger of the University of the police of Brandenburg in an interview with FOCUS Online. You invest only easy to more resources in the discovery of the offender. “For years in the police crime statistics recorded a decline of offences does not mean that the crime goes back, it moves always more to the network; and the display probability is extremely low and is not reflected in the statistics,“ says Rüdiger.
- see also: +++ the case of abuse in Münster in the News-Ticker +++ – child abuse in Münster, Germany: Hessian Minister of justice, calls for tougher penalties
the main reason for this is that investigators and evaluators are faced with an ever-increasing number of child porn cases, especially the many references to owner or disseminator of such material from the United States. Most of the references to files with child pornographic content receives, the BKA is currently of the American non-governmental organisation National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which works with Internet service providers, and service providers such as Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo or Google.
data retention: “Our investigators have tied the hands”
About 60,000 of such notes are received by the BKA in 2019, about the notification procedure. But only a fraction of these cases was handled by the German investigator, actually, because the supplied IP address could be assigned in the absence of data retention no specific port in Germany. The BKA warns, therefore, for a long time: “Without a transposition of the data retention thousands of cases of child pornography remain unsolved, our investigators are investigators, their hands tied.”
A: In the fight against the flood of data, the investigators get ever more intelligent methods. Especially in North Rhine-Westphalia, which was in the past few years, the scene of massive crimes against children, has invested a lot of money to help the investigators in their work. The analyser in the KiPo as Axel F. working in a virtual office, in the clerk from the various police authorities throughout the country, together with thousands of Terra bytes of data to sift through.
Artificial intelligence as a ticket in pedophile circles
The use of Artificial intelligence comes of it. Special software systems, for example, recognise the faces of perpetrators and Victims and are able to distinguish known from unknown actors. The investigations in closed forums on the Darknet work today is much easier than in the past.
Because access to the strictly protected pedophile gets circles in the network, who offers even child pornography, generate investigator at the Computer, in the meantime, children’s pornographic images, which look deceptively real, and as a ticket to serve. “A lot has changed and improved,” says Axel F. “But it remains a constant race.”
According to the psychological burden that weighs on the shoulders of the child pornography investigators. “Imagine, you would have to regularly see how children and babies are abused,” says cyber criminologist, Rüdiger. “Actually, you should give these officers a medal and double the salary figures.”
Stiffer penalties for child abuse on the Internet?
The policy discussed after the cases of abuse of Münster will now be on a possible increase in the level of penalties for child pornography and abuse. NRW-Minister of the interior, Herbert Reul calls, the deeds should not be more than Offense, but classified as crimes. And Magdeburg colleague Holger Stahlknecht, also CDU party argued for a minimum sentence of one year for possession and distribution of child pornography.
However, harsher penalties can tackle the abuse of children in the network, really?
From a criminological point of view, the effect of such measures is low, argues criminologist Rüdiger. “It depends on the probability to be punished. Even with high penalties offender act, if you know that you don’t get caught.“ Janine Limberg resources are missing Because of the police, could perpetrators have been on the net much too open, says cyber criminologist Thomas Gabriel Ruediger.
it is Precisely here that the Problem lies Rüdiger, says perpetrators could approach the net, with some operating only little protective measures, because the tracking probability in the digital space is so small. “It’s not worth it for some of the perpetrators is simply to take precautions in order not to be discovered, because in the network, the enforcement probability is massively lower than in the case of purely analog offences.”
- see also: crime – Lambrecht: Tempo in tougher penalties against child abuse PUSH – “It is a heinous crime” – the Federal Minister of justice, Lambrecht help now, but for tougher penalties for child abuse
investing in modern technology, the when Evaluating the mass data, the cyber criminologists that makes sense. But the big Problem in the fight against child pornography and abuse on the net is the fact that you are not giving the phenomenon still the attention it need actually is, according to Rüdiger.
“if on the one hand, of a genuine overall strategy, how we can deal with in a global digital space, with billions of people actually, child abuse effectively, and on the other hand, the presence of the safety authorities in the network is already too low to really be sustainable against sexual offences and to convict offenders in all categories of crime.”
misuse of Münster will not remain an isolated case
the consequences of the lack of resources has recently pointed out, the German police Union (GdP). In North Rhine-Westphalia “more and more cases of abuse will be known to” have a lot to do with the investigative capacities in the area had been increased, said the Vice-GdP-country Chairman Michael Maatz. “Therefore, we must expect that in the next few months, additional groups of child molesters are going to change blow, some of them in dimensions that you can think of so far nobody.”
More police on the net could save children
The criminologist is convinced that there is a need now, above all, to the growing Problem: “a real jolt, a mass shift of police resources”. The previously solved cases are just a drop on the hot stone, Rüdiger. He firmly believes: “The more officers in the network to use, the more children can be protected.” The world is better than your bad news – FOCUS Online provides you every Friday with the best stories from the field perspectives. Subscribe here for free Newsletter:
Markus Lanz: a detective text calls for clearly on the subject of sexual abuse, FOCUS Online/Wochit At Markus Lanz: a detective calls in clear text when the topic of sexual abuse
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