Anonymous ‘deep web’ is new frontier of child exploitation, conference told

Ernie Allen, the president of the International Centre for Missing and Exploited
Children told an Ottawa conference Saturday that the ‘deep web’ represents
the biggest threat of child exploitation.

OTTAWA — The new frontier for child pornography is the anonymous “deep web” and it will be paid for with hard to track virtual currencies such as Bitcoin, the president of the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children told an Ottawa conference Saturday.

Ernie Allen said there has been a “fundamental shift” in human trafficking and child exploitation from the street to the Internet and the use of free and readily available anonymizing software has created a new “hub” for online child pornographers and pimps to conduct their business.

That shift now presents the greatest challenge to law enforcement tasked with trying to track the “sophisticated organized criminals” engaged in what has become the low risk and highly profitable business of trafficking and sexually exploiting children, Allen said.

Allen said an Internet that offers impenetrable anonymity is a “prescription for disaster” and that the time is now to find a way to balance privacy interests and anonymity before it is too late.
Allen was speaking to “Together Let’s Stop Traffick,” an international summit on preventing human trafficking being held in downtown Ottawa and attended by police officers, victims advocates, software developers, non-governmental agencies and others.  (more...)

Anonymous ‘deep web’ is new frontier of child exploitation, conference told