Global net force to hunt child abusers

This Is London ^ | January 26, 2005 | Rebecca Mowling

[Stoat]

Global net force to hunt child abusers
By Rebecca Mowling, Evening Standard
26 January 2005

Children will be able to report internet paedophiles with a click of the mouse under new plans announced today.

Officers from Britain's National Crime Squad, the US and Interpol are spearheading an international child protection force to curb child abuse.

From today, children who realise they are being "groomed" by suspected paedophiles using internet chatrooms will be able to email the messages to police from the Virtual Global Taskforce (VGT).

Jim Gamble, National Crime Squad director general and VGT chairman, said: "The VGT is a unique partnership in the history of law enforcement."

[Stoat]

I hope that an appropriate level of evidence will be required by this agency prior to any action on their part....I can just imagine the door to the stoat cave being broken down by a SWAT battering ram just because somebody wanted to play a 'prank' or something. It's terribly easy for anybody with even the most basic computer knowledge to manufacture a forged chatroom transcript and then forward it to such an agency.

I'll be first in line when they ask for volunteers to pull the lever on child molesters and perverts, but "Children will be able to report internet paedophiles with a click of the mouse" suggests to me that the normal vetting of evidence may be 'streamlined' with this initiative. We shall see.

[queenkathy]

I don't know if I understand all of this or not. Does this mean any child can turn someone in with a click of the mouse? Or am I misreading it? If so, that could be a bad idea in some cases.

[Stoat]

I don't know if I understand all of this or not. Does this mean any child can turn someone in with a click of the mouse? Or am I misreading it? If so, that could be a bad idea in some cases.

I don't think that it's a matter of your misreading it, but more a matter of a poorly-written article that leaves such important and obvious questions unanswered.

In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have posted this as all it does is raise questions and doesn't answer them.  I'm not one to needlessly spread fear, and this article accomplishes little else than that.

My apologies.

[Stoat]

In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have posted this article as it's really badly written and raises more questions than it answers. If you would like to pull it, that would be fine with me. Although it's good to know that this law-enforcement organization exists, I think that it would be better to find a more complete article about it before posting info about it.

My apologies :-(

[Stoat]

Here's more on the Virtual Global Taskforce

Virtual Global Taskforce Corporate Homepage

About The Virtual Global Taskforce

The Virtual Global Taskforce (VGT) was created in 2003 as a direct response to lessons learned from investigations into on-line child abuse around the world. It is an international alliance of law enforcement agencies working together to make the Internet a safer place. The Taskforce’s Mission Statement is published in full on this website.

The Virtual Global Taskforce comprises the Australian High Tech Crime Centre, the National Crime Squad for England and Wales, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the US Department of Homeland Security and Interpol. Jim Gamble, Deputy Director General of the National Crime Squad, is the current Chair.

The Virtual Global Taskforce delivers innovative crime prevention and crime reduction initiatives to prevent and deter individuals from committing on-line child abuse. On-line child abuse includes searching for, sharing and downloading images of children being physically and sexually abused and “grooming” children in, for example, chat rooms with the intention of committing sexual abuse both on and off-line. Details of current and future initiatives are published on this website.  | Read VGT's Mission Statement