November 7, 2023 • 18 mins
*Content warning - parental discretion advised*
Detective Superintendent Jayne Crossling from ACCCE outlines the critical role parents and carers play in keeping children safe online. Learn how to have important conversations with your children - education is the key to prevention!
Topics in this episode:
- What is capping?
- The work of ACCCE
- Teenagers at risk
- How in-game chat functions move to encrypted environments or video chat
- Red flags that are often missed
- The role of parents and carers in keeping children safe online
- Supervision and rules for screens
- Teaching children how to respond
- Laws regarding child self-generated material
- Advice for parents
Some previous interviews with Detective Superintendent Jayne Crossling from ACCCE:
- #699 Jayne Crossling on Safe Photo Sharing
- #731 Kids and Grooming - What You Need to Know
- #748 Are Paedophiles Really Looking at Your Kids Online?
Find us on Facebook at Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families
Email us your questions and comments at podcasts@happyfamilies.com.au
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's the Happy Families podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just answers. Now,
it seems that the ways that we can get ourselves
in trouble on screens never ends, especially when it comes
to our children. Children screens and something called capping is
the conversation today before we go any further, and I
(00:26):
introduced my guest just to remind it that some of the
things that we'll be talking about today are for mature audiences.
With all of these things with online dangers, there is
the risk that some little is might be a little
bit too curious too soon. However, I don't think that's
a big deal when it comes to these conversations because
we need to be having them, so I'll leave it
to your discretion. Certainly, if the kids aren't listening to
(00:48):
this conversation, we do want you to have a conversation
with your kids about this conversation, because, like I said,
there's no end to the different ways that kids can
find themselves in trouble online. Joining me today as always
to talk about these topics is Detective Superintendent Jane Crossling
from the Australian Center to Counter Child Exploitation or ace AS.
(01:13):
It's better known. You can find out more about ACE
at ACCCE. That's a triple CE dot gov dot au. Jane,
thanks for being with me on the podcast today. What
is capping?
Speaker 1 (01:26):
In its most simple terms, capping is where a young
person is tricked or coerced or threatened into creating sexual acts, including.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Video and images, and then.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Those sorts of images are then screenshoted or capped, hence
the name. And it could be that the young person
doesn't know that that's actually happened, so they think that
they're sharing material with somebody online that they have maybe
been tricked into thinking they're actually sharing with someone they
know or someone of a similar age. They don't realize
(02:09):
that that's all being screenshotted.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Then that material is.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Frequently shared with other people, and so in some instances,
the young person doesn't even know that they're actually a
victim of a few different types of crimes.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
So I want to drill into how this works. You're
talking about kids thinking that they're talking to somebody that
they know, but it turns out to either not be
that personal or they've been deceived in some way. What's
going on here, Like, who's doing this to our children?
And why.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Unfortunately, there are online offenders out there that have an
appetite for this type of material where they are doing
it because they have a sexual interest in children, and
in many instances they are actually connected to other offenders
who also like sharing this material. So once they're able
to receive this material, they're allowed to share with their
(03:07):
friends and they get coudos and must they're online network
for sharing this particular material.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
So last time we talked, we spoke about the sextortion
or sexual exploitation of children. That is that there are
people working in call centers literally as paid employees overseas
who are pretending to be an attractive young female, for example,
and approaching a teenage boy and saying, hey, here's an
intimate picture of me, and will you send me one
of you now, Like they'll spend a little bit of
time developing the relationship over maybe five or ten minutes
(03:35):
or maybe five or ten days. Then they get that
image in front of the boy. The boy goes, oh
my goodness, that was astounding, and now I'm emotionally a
little bit hot, I guess you might say. And then
the request comes through from this quote unquote girl saying
now send me one. He does that, and then she says, actually,
I'm not who you think I am. Send me some
bitcoin otherwise I'm going to share this with your entire list.
(03:56):
It sounds to me like what you're describing as capping
is quite different. That is, this isn't done for financial gain.
This is actually done simply for personal satisfaction. I don't
like using that word in this context, but it sounds
like this is a thing that there are predators who
are literally trying to have children expose themselves online so
that they can get access to that content and then
(04:18):
share it within their dark web groups so that they
can become more powerful in those circles.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Correct or it's entirely for their own personal consumption as well,
because they, as I said, they do have a sexual
interest in children. So it can be stand alone offending,
it can be syndicated offending as well. We're seeing a
range of different offending play out, and it unfortunately is
a global network at times. And this is where the
(04:48):
power of this range center account a child the expectation
when it comes in because we've.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Got those connections with law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
So this is giving us a really strong sense of
how it's playing out.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Around the globe.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
So what typically is happening is that children are being
actively targeted in a very similar way as you describe
to sexual extortion.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Jane, who's most likely to be affected here? Is there
a particular age group who is the target of these
I'm going to use the word predators. I don't know
that there's a better word for it.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
So they are young people generally, and the ACE certainly
only focuses in on under ageens, but we are most
commonly seeing teenage children being affected by this.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Okay. Would it be reasonable to say, though, that there
are some bad actors out there who are very active
in children's games as well games for kids that are
under twelve.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
That might be a way that they're initially friending the
children through in game chat functionality, but frequently they're taking
them out of that space so that they can actually
have direct message capability with them.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Frequently that's in an encrypted.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Environment, but then they need to get into a video
chat particular app. So that's where they're lured into whichever
particular video chat app that the offender chooses, and is
their preference.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Let me ask a really concrete question. I know it's
hard to give a simple answer to this question, but
how long do most offenders most predators take to develop
a relationship, make the requests, get the child, the teenager,
the young person off the platform that they're on, into
the encrypted chat or video service and obtain exploitative material.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Unfortunately, it's getting shorter and shorter the amount of time
that it takes for these offenders. In you've gone by,
this type of offending would have taken quite some time
to convince a young person a to friend someone that
they don't know and be to actually then respond to
the sharing of sexualized images. So this is a huge
(07:05):
cause for concern for us. And it would appear that
some of those red flags are being ignored by the
young people or they're just not tuning into them. And
this is why we certainly need to appeal to parents
and carers because they play a critical role.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Can we please get really clear on what those red
flags are that are being ignored by the kids, because
obviously parents need to talk about this with their kids. Therefore,
they need to get the high lighter out and circle
where the red flags are and say, hang, this is
a line, like don't cross this line. This is not
safe behavior, this is not healthy behavior. What are the
red flags that parents want to be talking to their
kids about.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
So the thing, the very key one that starts off
is that you are friended by someone you don't know.
So what a young person might call it random, or
maybe we're calling them randoms, but they're random, and much
like sexual extortion, the conversation can become sexualized, and that
can happen quite rapidly. They may or may not share
(08:06):
images of purporting to be themselves, but perhaps not, and
then they will al most definitely push them into a
different platform so that they can get onto the platform
of their choice, so that they can actually create the video.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I keep on thinking of Madonna King's advice in her
book Saving Our Kids, the book that she wrote about
Task Force Argos and the work that the ACE has
been doing over the years, and this advice that she
was just screaming through a megaphone throughout the book, and
that is, don't let your kids have their devices in
the bedroom or the bathroom. Just don't let them do that,
(08:43):
because if they're in a public area, they're not going
to take their gear off and send it to some
random on the internet. Whereas bathrooms and bedrooms this is
where the exploitation happens. You're nodding your head as I'm
looking at you on zoom. Can you just extrapolate on
that briefly.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Absolutely, And this goes for children of all ages as well.
We particularly recommend supervision for younger children because unfortunately, we
have instances where young children themselves have been able to
take unclad images of themselves or video and themselves load
them into social media services, and sometimes the parents are
(09:19):
completely unaware.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
So I want to ask you a question about that, Jane,
And it's a really hard question to ask in so
many ways, I don't want the answer, but I think
that every parent who's listening needs to know the answer
so they know that this is serious. What's the youngest
age of a child that you know who has been
involved in a capping incident.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
I believe that there would be children as young as
ten from what I understand, but as I said, it's
predominantly the teenage years that we are most concerned about.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Okay, but I think that it's worth pausing on this
and just highlighting. So my youngest is nine, right, and
by be too long till she's ten. She's such a tiny,
tiny kid. And it's just I think it's that reminder
a lot of parents say, oh, my kids aren't doing this,
or they're not doing that, or they're safe because I've
had this conversation and I keep coming back to this
idea that they're just not safe for they're kids. It's
(10:08):
like when we were doing parental guidance together, Jane, and
we've got these kids that are accepting invitations from strangers
to disclose personal details, even though the parents are sitting
there saying, but we've had the conversation in terms of
keeping our kids safe. I don't think we can be
strong enough on this. Keep the phones out of the
bedroom bathroom, and recognize that kids as young as ten,
(10:32):
maybe even younger, are going to be approached and they
need to know how to respond. It just seems to
me like it's a massive parental responsibility. I want to
talk about the practical stuff from parents for just a sec,
but I have two questions that are really, I don't know,
raging inside of me. One of them is just what's
the law on this? I mean, it's obviously illegal, but
(10:55):
what are we really talking about from a lawful perspective here?
And is it the same Industrala as it is elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
So the laws very unfortunately state by state in Australia
and then also differ internationally as well, and the police
response also differentiates as well across state and territories in Australia.
So in relation to self generated content, what the ACE
is very strong on is that we generally don't want
(11:22):
to criminalize that behavior for a young person, and we
want to look at the circumstances in which self generated
material was actually created. So were they tricked, were they coerced?
Where they led to believe that they were sharing with
somebody that they knew or that they trusted. What happened
in relation to having that self generated material created? Then
(11:43):
for those matters to be investigated by police. If that
was just a standalone matter of self generated material, police
in each state and territory would need to take into
account what are the motivations of those involved? Was it mutual,
was it consensual? And was it just perhaps that the
young people were exploring what are essentially adult concepts but
(12:09):
something that we do see quite commonly in the teenage years.
So we do say that if there's been threats or
coercion or trickery involved in the generation of this self
created material, that a young person is essentially a victim
in that situation, and that a young person isn't actually
to blame for falling victim to that kind of online offender.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
And we believe that in.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
All circumstances, these matters are complex and they need to
be handled with sensitivity and care to ensure that the
young person who is actually not revictimized through the process.
So if it is a non aggravated circumstance, that there
is mutual consent that perhaps sharing got a little bit
out of hand, and that's how it came to law
(12:56):
enforcement attention. Then a police responsor around the country ideally
and typically focuses on.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Education and prevention.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
But as soon as police get a sense that there's
more to it, that perhaps there's other elements here where
there's adults involved, and as I mentioned, there's threats and coercions,
that is where they'll actually look at this quite differently
and want to understand the circumstances. And that's exactly how
some of these capping and sometimes sexual extortion matters are uncovered.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Jane AI is becoming an increasingly relevant part of this
discussion in terms of explicit material being both sought for
and generated and even shared. Does that come into this
capping and sexual exploitation discussion at all.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
There's a chance that when an offender approaches a young person,
they've actually used AI generated images in order to lure
that young person in. So it could be that it's
actually not a real person of any sort, and that
offenders will seek to hide behind an artificially created profile
(14:05):
picture that is presumably attractive for the person they're trying
to offend against. So yes, we would see AI utilized
in that particular way most definitely.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yeah, the world is changing in frightening ways. My last
question because our time is running out fast and parents
need solutions. This is the podcast for the time poor
parents who just wants answers. Now, now that we've discussed
capping and what it is, how do parents talk about
this with their children? What are your top couple of tips?
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Okay, so we've got so much advice to offer in
this regard. We do not for a moment want parents
to think that they're helpless. We want them to be
able to feel that they're up for the challenge.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
So we would.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Say, firstly, have an environment that is open and non judgmental.
And we've talked about having conversations, really open conversations, and
that they can't just be one off, they cannot be
set and forget. They need to be frequent and it
needs to adapt as we see these sorts of crimes
adapt as well.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
So you as a.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Parent, you might find it quite nerve racking and uncomfortable,
but this is a better scenario than having to deal
with the worst case scenario. At the end of the day,
it's important to have these conversations, and we stress to
parents that they need to avoid judgmental language. They need
to avoid making judge themselves about you. How could you
(15:28):
do this? How could you be so silly? We want
to ask that they push past all of that and
get to the heart of the problem, because we know
that for young people's shame can be a significant barrier
in order to come forward and that could actually make
them even more vulnerable to ongoing exploitation. So we want
(15:49):
them to speak up. We want them to feel comfortable
enough to be able to share what's happening in their lives,
and offenders will use isolation tactics and shaming and that
will reports coming forward. So parents need to find a
way to push past that. Parents also have a role
more broadly to teach kids critical thinking about how they
interact with people online and that simple message about not
(16:13):
everybody is who they say they are online, and to
keep that thinking up at all times when they're operating online.
We have, you know, some major tips that we always
talk about for parents and cares. In addition to open conversations,
supervision is essential, particularly for younger users. It's important to
(16:34):
check your privacy settings to understand how much information a
young person's putting out there in the world, be approachable
if your child needs help, and then know how to report.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
For more great advice on how to keep our families
safe online, especially our children, teenagers, all young people. Visit
the ACE website a triple C E, dot gov, dot AU.
All of those resources that Detective super Into Tendant Jane
Crossling has just mentioned are available there and they will
keep your family safe. It's an important conversation. It's too
(17:06):
important to not have it. Jane as always so grateful
for the work that you do and for the time
that you've spent explaining this to us to help us
to keep our families safe. On the happy Families podcast,
Thank you Detective Superintendent Jane Crossling from the Australian Center
toccount of a child exploitation. The Happy Family's podcast is
produced by Justin Rouland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is
(17:27):
our executive producer. Scary, isn't it like? It's just so
frightening that we live in a world where there are
people who have these motivations. Thank goodness we have people
like Jane and those who work with her to help out.
If you'd like more information about making your family safe,
like I said, visit the a's website or check out
what we have to offer to guide your family at
(17:49):
Happy Families dot com do AU.
It's the Happy Families podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just answers. Now,
it seems that the ways that we can get ourselves
in trouble on screens never ends, especially when it comes
to our children. Children screens and something called capping is
the conversation today before we go any further, and I
(00:26):
introduced my guest just to remind it that some of the
things that we'll be talking about today are for mature audiences.
With all of these things with online dangers, there is
the risk that some little is might be a little
bit too curious too soon. However, I don't think that's
a big deal when it comes to these conversations because
we need to be having them, so I'll leave it
to your discretion. Certainly, if the kids aren't listening to
(00:48):
this conversation, we do want you to have a conversation
with your kids about this conversation, because, like I said,
there's no end to the different ways that kids can
find themselves in trouble online. Joining me today as always
to talk about these topics is Detective Superintendent Jane Crossling
from the Australian Center to Counter Child Exploitation or ace AS.
(01:13):
It's better known. You can find out more about ACE
at ACCCE. That's a triple CE dot gov dot au. Jane,
thanks for being with me on the podcast today. What
is capping?
Speaker 1 (01:26):
In its most simple terms, capping is where a young
person is tricked or coerced or threatened into creating sexual acts, including.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Video and images, and then.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Those sorts of images are then screenshoted or capped, hence
the name. And it could be that the young person
doesn't know that that's actually happened, so they think that
they're sharing material with somebody online that they have maybe
been tricked into thinking they're actually sharing with someone they
know or someone of a similar age. They don't realize
(02:09):
that that's all being screenshotted.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Then that material is.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Frequently shared with other people, and so in some instances,
the young person doesn't even know that they're actually a
victim of a few different types of crimes.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
So I want to drill into how this works. You're
talking about kids thinking that they're talking to somebody that
they know, but it turns out to either not be
that personal or they've been deceived in some way. What's
going on here, Like, who's doing this to our children?
And why.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Unfortunately, there are online offenders out there that have an
appetite for this type of material where they are doing
it because they have a sexual interest in children, and
in many instances they are actually connected to other offenders
who also like sharing this material. So once they're able
to receive this material, they're allowed to share with their
(03:07):
friends and they get coudos and must they're online network
for sharing this particular material.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
So last time we talked, we spoke about the sextortion
or sexual exploitation of children. That is that there are
people working in call centers literally as paid employees overseas
who are pretending to be an attractive young female, for example,
and approaching a teenage boy and saying, hey, here's an
intimate picture of me, and will you send me one
of you now, Like they'll spend a little bit of
time developing the relationship over maybe five or ten minutes
(03:35):
or maybe five or ten days. Then they get that
image in front of the boy. The boy goes, oh
my goodness, that was astounding, and now I'm emotionally a
little bit hot, I guess you might say. And then
the request comes through from this quote unquote girl saying
now send me one. He does that, and then she says, actually,
I'm not who you think I am. Send me some
bitcoin otherwise I'm going to share this with your entire list.
(03:56):
It sounds to me like what you're describing as capping
is quite different. That is, this isn't done for financial gain.
This is actually done simply for personal satisfaction. I don't
like using that word in this context, but it sounds
like this is a thing that there are predators who
are literally trying to have children expose themselves online so
that they can get access to that content and then
(04:18):
share it within their dark web groups so that they
can become more powerful in those circles.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Correct or it's entirely for their own personal consumption as well,
because they, as I said, they do have a sexual
interest in children. So it can be stand alone offending,
it can be syndicated offending as well. We're seeing a
range of different offending play out, and it unfortunately is
a global network at times. And this is where the
(04:48):
power of this range center account a child the expectation
when it comes in because we've.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Got those connections with law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
So this is giving us a really strong sense of
how it's playing out.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Around the globe.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
So what typically is happening is that children are being
actively targeted in a very similar way as you describe
to sexual extortion.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Jane, who's most likely to be affected here? Is there
a particular age group who is the target of these
I'm going to use the word predators. I don't know
that there's a better word for it.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
So they are young people generally, and the ACE certainly
only focuses in on under ageens, but we are most
commonly seeing teenage children being affected by this.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Okay. Would it be reasonable to say, though, that there
are some bad actors out there who are very active
in children's games as well games for kids that are
under twelve.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
That might be a way that they're initially friending the
children through in game chat functionality, but frequently they're taking
them out of that space so that they can actually
have direct message capability with them.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Frequently that's in an encrypted.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Environment, but then they need to get into a video
chat particular app. So that's where they're lured into whichever
particular video chat app that the offender chooses, and is
their preference.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Let me ask a really concrete question. I know it's
hard to give a simple answer to this question, but
how long do most offenders most predators take to develop
a relationship, make the requests, get the child, the teenager,
the young person off the platform that they're on, into
the encrypted chat or video service and obtain exploitative material.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Unfortunately, it's getting shorter and shorter the amount of time
that it takes for these offenders. In you've gone by,
this type of offending would have taken quite some time
to convince a young person a to friend someone that
they don't know and be to actually then respond to
the sharing of sexualized images. So this is a huge
(07:05):
cause for concern for us. And it would appear that
some of those red flags are being ignored by the
young people or they're just not tuning into them. And
this is why we certainly need to appeal to parents
and carers because they play a critical role.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Can we please get really clear on what those red
flags are that are being ignored by the kids, because
obviously parents need to talk about this with their kids. Therefore,
they need to get the high lighter out and circle
where the red flags are and say, hang, this is
a line, like don't cross this line. This is not
safe behavior, this is not healthy behavior. What are the
red flags that parents want to be talking to their
kids about.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
So the thing, the very key one that starts off
is that you are friended by someone you don't know.
So what a young person might call it random, or
maybe we're calling them randoms, but they're random, and much
like sexual extortion, the conversation can become sexualized, and that
can happen quite rapidly. They may or may not share
(08:06):
images of purporting to be themselves, but perhaps not, and
then they will al most definitely push them into a
different platform so that they can get onto the platform
of their choice, so that they can actually create the video.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I keep on thinking of Madonna King's advice in her
book Saving Our Kids, the book that she wrote about
Task Force Argos and the work that the ACE has
been doing over the years, and this advice that she
was just screaming through a megaphone throughout the book, and
that is, don't let your kids have their devices in
the bedroom or the bathroom. Just don't let them do that,
(08:43):
because if they're in a public area, they're not going
to take their gear off and send it to some
random on the internet. Whereas bathrooms and bedrooms this is
where the exploitation happens. You're nodding your head as I'm
looking at you on zoom. Can you just extrapolate on
that briefly.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Absolutely, And this goes for children of all ages as well.
We particularly recommend supervision for younger children because unfortunately, we
have instances where young children themselves have been able to
take unclad images of themselves or video and themselves load
them into social media services, and sometimes the parents are
(09:19):
completely unaware.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
So I want to ask you a question about that, Jane,
And it's a really hard question to ask in so
many ways, I don't want the answer, but I think
that every parent who's listening needs to know the answer
so they know that this is serious. What's the youngest
age of a child that you know who has been
involved in a capping incident.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
I believe that there would be children as young as
ten from what I understand, but as I said, it's
predominantly the teenage years that we are most concerned about.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Okay, but I think that it's worth pausing on this
and just highlighting. So my youngest is nine, right, and
by be too long till she's ten. She's such a tiny,
tiny kid. And it's just I think it's that reminder
a lot of parents say, oh, my kids aren't doing this,
or they're not doing that, or they're safe because I've
had this conversation and I keep coming back to this
idea that they're just not safe for they're kids. It's
(10:08):
like when we were doing parental guidance together, Jane, and
we've got these kids that are accepting invitations from strangers
to disclose personal details, even though the parents are sitting
there saying, but we've had the conversation in terms of
keeping our kids safe. I don't think we can be
strong enough on this. Keep the phones out of the
bedroom bathroom, and recognize that kids as young as ten,
(10:32):
maybe even younger, are going to be approached and they
need to know how to respond. It just seems to
me like it's a massive parental responsibility. I want to
talk about the practical stuff from parents for just a sec,
but I have two questions that are really, I don't know,
raging inside of me. One of them is just what's
the law on this? I mean, it's obviously illegal, but
(10:55):
what are we really talking about from a lawful perspective here?
And is it the same Industrala as it is elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
So the laws very unfortunately state by state in Australia
and then also differ internationally as well, and the police
response also differentiates as well across state and territories in Australia.
So in relation to self generated content, what the ACE
is very strong on is that we generally don't want
(11:22):
to criminalize that behavior for a young person, and we
want to look at the circumstances in which self generated
material was actually created. So were they tricked, were they coerced?
Where they led to believe that they were sharing with
somebody that they knew or that they trusted. What happened
in relation to having that self generated material created? Then
(11:43):
for those matters to be investigated by police. If that
was just a standalone matter of self generated material, police
in each state and territory would need to take into
account what are the motivations of those involved? Was it mutual,
was it consensual? And was it just perhaps that the
young people were exploring what are essentially adult concepts but
(12:09):
something that we do see quite commonly in the teenage years.
So we do say that if there's been threats or
coercion or trickery involved in the generation of this self
created material, that a young person is essentially a victim
in that situation, and that a young person isn't actually
to blame for falling victim to that kind of online offender.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
And we believe that in.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
All circumstances, these matters are complex and they need to
be handled with sensitivity and care to ensure that the
young person who is actually not revictimized through the process.
So if it is a non aggravated circumstance, that there
is mutual consent that perhaps sharing got a little bit
out of hand, and that's how it came to law
(12:56):
enforcement attention. Then a police responsor around the country ideally
and typically focuses on.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Education and prevention.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
But as soon as police get a sense that there's
more to it, that perhaps there's other elements here where
there's adults involved, and as I mentioned, there's threats and coercions,
that is where they'll actually look at this quite differently
and want to understand the circumstances. And that's exactly how
some of these capping and sometimes sexual extortion matters are uncovered.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Jane AI is becoming an increasingly relevant part of this
discussion in terms of explicit material being both sought for
and generated and even shared. Does that come into this
capping and sexual exploitation discussion at all.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
There's a chance that when an offender approaches a young person,
they've actually used AI generated images in order to lure
that young person in. So it could be that it's
actually not a real person of any sort, and that
offenders will seek to hide behind an artificially created profile
(14:05):
picture that is presumably attractive for the person they're trying
to offend against. So yes, we would see AI utilized
in that particular way most definitely.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yeah, the world is changing in frightening ways. My last
question because our time is running out fast and parents
need solutions. This is the podcast for the time poor
parents who just wants answers. Now, now that we've discussed
capping and what it is, how do parents talk about
this with their children? What are your top couple of tips?
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Okay, so we've got so much advice to offer in
this regard. We do not for a moment want parents
to think that they're helpless. We want them to be
able to feel that they're up for the challenge.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
So we would.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Say, firstly, have an environment that is open and non judgmental.
And we've talked about having conversations, really open conversations, and
that they can't just be one off, they cannot be
set and forget. They need to be frequent and it
needs to adapt as we see these sorts of crimes
adapt as well.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
So you as a.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Parent, you might find it quite nerve racking and uncomfortable,
but this is a better scenario than having to deal
with the worst case scenario. At the end of the day,
it's important to have these conversations, and we stress to
parents that they need to avoid judgmental language. They need
to avoid making judge themselves about you. How could you
(15:28):
do this? How could you be so silly? We want
to ask that they push past all of that and
get to the heart of the problem, because we know
that for young people's shame can be a significant barrier
in order to come forward and that could actually make
them even more vulnerable to ongoing exploitation. So we want
(15:49):
them to speak up. We want them to feel comfortable
enough to be able to share what's happening in their lives,
and offenders will use isolation tactics and shaming and that
will reports coming forward. So parents need to find a
way to push past that. Parents also have a role
more broadly to teach kids critical thinking about how they
interact with people online and that simple message about not
(16:13):
everybody is who they say they are online, and to
keep that thinking up at all times when they're operating online.
We have, you know, some major tips that we always
talk about for parents and cares. In addition to open conversations,
supervision is essential, particularly for younger users. It's important to
(16:34):
check your privacy settings to understand how much information a
young person's putting out there in the world, be approachable
if your child needs help, and then know how to report.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
For more great advice on how to keep our families
safe online, especially our children, teenagers, all young people. Visit
the ACE website a triple C E, dot gov, dot AU.
All of those resources that Detective super Into Tendant Jane
Crossling has just mentioned are available there and they will
keep your family safe. It's an important conversation. It's too
(17:06):
important to not have it. Jane as always so grateful
for the work that you do and for the time
that you've spent explaining this to us to help us
to keep our families safe. On the happy Families podcast,
Thank you Detective Superintendent Jane Crossling from the Australian Center
toccount of a child exploitation. The Happy Family's podcast is
produced by Justin Rouland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is
(17:27):
our executive producer. Scary, isn't it like? It's just so
frightening that we live in a world where there are
people who have these motivations. Thank goodness we have people
like Jane and those who work with her to help out.
If you'd like more information about making your family safe,
like I said, visit the a's website or check out
what we have to offer to guide your family at
(17:49):
Happy Families dot com do AU.
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