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April 12, 2009

PULLING THE PLUG ON WEB PREDATORS
Where's our 9-1-1 alarm button for quick response?

BY JULIAN SHER

Last month, police arrested a 47-year-old Medford man who tried to meet 11- and 13-year-old girls he befriended on the Internet. Fortunately, the "girls" were actually officers pretending to be the teens online.
Online predators are all too real. The latest available statistics show that about 3,700 online predators were arrested in 2006. But if your child got into trouble over the Web, would she know where to turn for help? For that matter, do you?

Contrast that with what happened when a teenager in England felt uneasy after a stranger made unwarranted sexual advances to her on the Internet; she was able to report the abuse directly to the police with a single click of her mouse. A subsequent sting operation led to the arrest of a man who had already lured two other girls over the Web and sexually assaulted them.

Thanks to a crusading cop and Microsoft U.K., young Web surfers in England can use a "Report Abuse" button to immediately contact a trained police investigator, who helps the child gather and preserve the crucial cyber-evidence.

The button was the brainchild of Jim Gamble, the director of the U.K.'s Child Exploitation and Online Protection center, a sort of FBI for children that brings together police, educators and industry. Gamble spent years fighting terrorism in Northern Ireland, and he showed the same drive taking on online predators.

Several online U.K. firms have adopted the button, which connects users to the Virtual Global Taskforce --a 24/7 operation bringing together top law enforcement agencies from the U.K., the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe. A child or parent who clicks the button is directed to the appropriate national policy agency depending on where they live. (In the U.S., users could be directed to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the federally mandated clearinghouse for all online child abuse reports from law enforcement and the public.)

The British police field no less than 500 reports a month; on average four a day are classified as "level one," where a child is in "immediate danger requiring emergency reaction."

But children in America are not so lucky, because Internet and software companies have balked so far at installing something as simple as a 9-1-1 button for the Web. The one exception is New Jersey, where an investigation by the state attorney general revealed "widespread abuses on social networking sites and obstacles to effectively and efficiently reporting those abuses." The state developed its own prominent report button, and Facebook has started testing it.

U.S. Internet executives have offered Gamble various explanations for not going forward ; he finds none convincing. Some raise concerns that the button could lead to a flood of spurious complaints. But the reporting procedure --much like filing a complaint at a police station --is not anonymous, which discourages all but the most authentic cases.

In its defense, the Web industry insists it is already doing much to ensure child safety. And that is true. Social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook offer a myriad of advice pages and self-reporting mechanisms. But when a child or parent is in desperate need of help and support, they don't need a confusing buffet of tips --they need fast, effective police response.

A Web alarm button should not raise any Big Brother fears of police spying on anyone's Internet activities. A "Report Abuse" button is a one-way channel: It's about children reaching out for help when they need it, not about police reaching into your privacy.

Even if widely implemented, a Report Abuse button would not be a magic bullet. There is no technological fix for child safety. The best piece of software is in your child's head --using his or her brain to practice safe Internet rules.

But a 9-1-1 button for the Web would work precisely because it empowers children and puts them in control. It turns the table on potential offenders, helping to make the Web unsafe for predators, not our children.

"Offenders are deterred, parents are reassured and children are empowered," says U.K. cop Gamble. "I cannot understand why industry won't come on board."

Think about it: You may have street-proofed your child to stay away from strangers in the park, but what if your child runs into trouble in the world's biggest playground --the Internet?
Surely it is time we had a simple way to call for help on the Web.

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Julian Sher is an investigative journalist and the author of "Caught in the Web: Inside the Police Hunt for Online Predator."

April 13, 2009