A BC Mountie who works for the RCMP’s Integrated Child Exploitation Unit says online predators are becoming a lot more tech-savvy when trolling social media platforms where kids are the main demographic.
According to police, child exploitation cases in our province has skyrocketed from a mere 4,600 in 2021 to 15,920 last year.
Prince George saw a year-over-year increase in sextortion cases tallying 80 in 2024, a spike of about 30 reports when compared to the previous year.
Cst. Solana Pare told Vista Radio with kids accessing the online world at a much younger age, giving online predators access to more youth.
“Children are accessing the internet younger and younger and we are noticing more and more platforms available for them to use. Additionally, we are always catching up on how predators are targeting children on these platforms.”
“From there, it is the tactics that have been happening for years and they tend to appear of that child or they engage with them and move that communication offline to another application where it just can’t be reported or monitored and the child becomes further at risk.”
Sadly, Pare noted this type of crime is here to stay, as police are often in a technological race with the online predators to try and track them down.
“These types of investigations can be very challenging. They involve a lot of digital evidence and we need to have specialized investigators that are available and trained to investigate these crimes. They can be very lengthy in nature and we have to go through a lot of steps in order to advance the investigations such as obtaining additional authorization through the courts in order to obtain private information that is protected, internet service providers and, electronic service providers.”
“Globally, most of these service providers are based in the United States are also obligated to report these crimes. From there, they make their report and it goes to our national centre in Ottawa if the incident happened in Canada.”
Similar to the toxic drug crisis, there is no corner of the province exempt from this.
“We see files generated in very small communities and we see files generated in major hubs. It doesn’t matter where you are, if you have access to the internet there is likely a report of child exploitation.”
Pare added national legislation has also led to a massive spike in files reported to police.
“One thing that has increased reports is due to mandatory reporting legislations. In Canada, we have an act where if a Canadian-based company operating must report any instances or suspicion of child sexual exploitation or abuse material to police.”
In October of 2023, 12-year-old Carson Cleland of Prince George died by suicide after falling victim to sextortion.
Cleland’s death drew the ire of Premier David Eby leading to sweeping changes in provincial legislation.
Last January, BC launched two new services including the Intimate Images Protection Act.
Under the legislation, the Civil Resolution Tribunal can order someone to pay fines of as much as $500 per day, if it is an individual or as much as $5,000 per day, if it is a website, for not following the order to stop sharing.
In Provincial Court, perpetrators can be ordered to pay significant damages of between $5,000 and $35,000, and the Supreme Court can award damages of more than $35,000.
“The Intimate Images Protection Act Reinforces our commitment to have robust enforcement against the unauthorized sharing of intimate images,” said Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth in a new release.
“We are equipped to address these violations swiftly and effectively, enabling victims to stop the distribution of their intimate images and take back control. Perpetrators face stricter penalties, sending a clear message that this crime will not be tolerated.”
Additionally, the province issued the Intimate Images Protection Service to ensure victims have dedicated services to support them.
This service provides:
- Emotional support, information and resources;
- help with applying to the Civil Resolution Tribunal;
- Assistance in communicating protection orders issued by the Civil Resolution Tribunal.
The Intimate Images Protection Service will work collaboratively with the tribunal to ensure trauma-informed information and support is available to victims throughout the province.
The topic of sextortion first gained international attention following the death of Amanda Todd, a 15-year-old girl from Port Coquitlam who also took her own life after being taunted and blackmailed online by a Dutch national, later identified as Aydin Coban.
Coban was eventually tried in court and was convicted of charges of extortion and harassment in the summer of 2022.
Pare noted tools such as Artificial Intelligence has done a good job in detecting seedy materials on popular platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and X (formally Twitter).
“In Canada, we have such a good definition of what child pornography is in our criminal code that if an AI-generated image was disseminated of a child, it would meet the definition of child pornography. In other countries that is not the case so we are not having to play catchup there, which is good, however, we notice AI is being used for good by the electronic service providers to locate and detect more child sexual abuse materials,” added Pare.
Furthermore, the RCMP’s National Child Exploitation Crime Centre saw from April 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024, approximately 118,162 reports of suspected online child sexual exploitation offences — a spike of 15 per cent increase when compared to the previous calendar year.
BC’s Integrated Child Exploitation Unit consists of 23 members including regular police officers, civilian members and investigators as well as a dedicated digital forensic services team.
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