Major tech companies including social media giants Snapchat and Facebook reported more than 9,600 cases of adults grooming kids in the UK in just six months last year.
The number, described as ‘shocking’ by children’s charity the NSPCC, amounts to around 400 per week. Law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) have become increasingly worried about the growing threat from sextortion and other crimes targeting teenagers.
Grooming can begin online and groomers can often try to get the communications to move onto less well monitored systems or by creating accounts on encrypted forums. Once isolated the children targetted by these people can then be 'managed' to do whatever the groomer intends.
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Checking who children communicate online has been a major issue for years but it is reaching epidemic proportions. Hopefully the new Internet Safety Act will increase the vigilance of the tech companies and get them to report these incidents or prevent such communications from taking place.
This said, monitoring at home, by parents and others who know and understand their children, will always be an important factor in keeping children safe online.
