Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #748 Are Paedophiles Really Looking at Your Kids Online?

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#748 Are Paedophiles Really Looking at Your Kids Online? · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the
0:07
Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers Now. Hello, this
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Speaker 1: is doctor Justin Colson. Welcome to another week and another
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Speaker 1: addition to the Happy Families Podcast. Today, joining me Detective
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Speaker 1: Superintendent Jane Crossling from the Australian Senate account of Child Exploitation,
0:20
Speaker 1: otherwise known as ACE. Jane has been on the podcast
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Speaker 1: a couple of times now talking about all things online,
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Speaker 1: all the challenges that we face when it comes to
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Speaker 1: keeping our children safe and working with the police to
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Speaker 1: counter child exploitation. You can imagine that Jane has a
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Speaker 1: lot of wisdom and unfortunately a whole lot of experience
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Speaker 1: that we don't really want to experience ourselves to lean on. Jane,
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Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me.
0:45
Speaker 2: Thank you Jackson.
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Speaker 1: I want to have a conversation with you today about
0:48
Speaker 1: something that there's been a lot of noise about in
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Speaker 1: the media over the last couple of weeks, and I
0:53
Speaker 1: have to be honest, I don't think it's that big
0:55
Speaker 1: of a deal and I'd love for you to either
0:58
Speaker 1: put me straight or provide me with the reassurance so
1:01
Speaker 1: long as a few things are taken care of the
1:03
Speaker 1: topic is parents taking photos of their kids in their
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Speaker 1: school uniform and posting them online. So obviously, in the
1:10
Speaker 1: last couple of weeks, the entire nation has returned from
1:13
Speaker 1: summer holidays, Christmas holidays, everyone's kids have gone back to school.
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Speaker 1: And I can't count on all my fingers and all
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Speaker 1: my toes the number of my Facebook friends, my Instagram
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Speaker 1: friends who have been sharing photos of their kids online
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Speaker 1: saying first day of school, or look at this happy bunch,
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Speaker 1: And for me, I'm looking at it going I don't
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Speaker 1: know why there's all these new news articles about the
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Speaker 1: potential threats. Obviously I'm not working in the area that
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Speaker 1: you're working in. But is it really that risky to
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Speaker 1: post a pic of your kids outside their school or
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Speaker 1: in their school uniform online to celebrate the fact that
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Speaker 1: they've done something awesome when they're going back to school,
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Speaker 1: or they're about to win the cross country or they've
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Speaker 1: won the swimming carnival or whatever it is. What's the
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Speaker 1: hype around this and is it overstated or is it legitimate?
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Speaker 2: Okay, it's legitimate, and we welcome the opportunity to talk
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Speaker 2: about some of the reasons why we do say it
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Speaker 2: is legitimate, So we're not for a moment saying don't post.
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Speaker 2: It's just that you need to take a moment to
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Speaker 2: work out are you're posting safely. So I think it'd
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Speaker 2: be really a poor message from law enforcement to come
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Speaker 2: out to say no, no, no, don't take photos of
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Speaker 2: your kids, don't share those moments with people in your life.
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Speaker 2: But there are ways to do it that are much
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Speaker 2: more safe than what we frequently see. So we can
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Speaker 2: talk about it from a law enforcement perspective to say,
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Speaker 2: in two key areas of what we see that's quite concerning.
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Speaker 2: One is that too there's too much information in the
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Speaker 2: imagery that allows a young person or indeed their family
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Speaker 2: to be groomed for sexual purposes. So that's one really
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Speaker 2: concerning aspect. The other thing is that we know when
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Speaker 2: we see devices from offenders, which we do, you know,
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Speaker 2: every week in Australia, we see these otherwise innocent images
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Speaker 2: ending up in the collection of online child sexual offenders.
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Speaker 2: So there's kind of two key things going on there.
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Speaker 2: One is that the information that's contained within those images
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Speaker 2: is used as leverage to pretend that they actually know
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Speaker 2: the child in more detail and know more details about them.
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Speaker 2: Than is otherwise safe. And then the other aspect is
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Speaker 2: the fact that you don't know where these images are
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Speaker 2: ending up depending on how they've been shared. So we're
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Speaker 2: not saying don't post, just think about how you're posting.
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Speaker 1: I'd like to talk about the how to post safely discussion.
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Speaker 1: In just a sec I'm hearing what you're saying. I
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Speaker 1: talk to a lot of parents day in and day out.
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Speaker 1: I talked to school teachers day in and day out.
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Speaker 1: I've got my own six kids, obviously, and while I
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Speaker 1: read about it in the news, hear about it. It's
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Speaker 1: one of those things that happens to other people. It's
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Speaker 1: so far removed from the interactions that I have with
4:00
Speaker 1: every day mums and dads that I'm interacting with on
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Speaker 1: a day to day basis. This sort of stuff so rarely,
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Speaker 1: so infrequently comes across my path. I feel uncomfortable saying
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Speaker 1: it to you, because obviously, your experience tells you this
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Speaker 1: is a big deal. But I kind of, as I
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Speaker 1: put myself into the mindset of every day mums and
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Speaker 1: dads who are listened to this conversation, I still kind
4:20
Speaker 1: of resist. It feels like it's so extra. It's like
4:23
Speaker 1: we're asking so much. Are there really that many depraved,
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Speaker 1: warped crazies? I mean, I know, even I'm asking the question,
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Speaker 1: what you're going to say, Yes, there are, But it
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Speaker 1: seems so improbable to me that there are that many
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Speaker 1: people who are out there who are mining online social
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Speaker 1: media platforms for images of my kids, or your kids,
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Speaker 1: or whoever's listened to the podcast right now, for their kids.
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Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean? It just seems so incredible.
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Speaker 1: It seems so far fetched that this is such a
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Speaker 1: big deal. How much does this really happen?
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Speaker 2: Well, it's just one of the many tools that an
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Speaker 2: online groomer or an offender might use. So, and we've
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Speaker 2: spoken in the past, we talk about sexual extortion. This
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Speaker 2: is one of the tactics that sexual extorters would use
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Speaker 2: to say, oh, you know, you know me, I'm a
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Speaker 2: friend of a friend, I also go to school X.
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Speaker 2: So they've got that key piece of information that they
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Speaker 2: can actually utilize to get through the otherwise barrier that
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Speaker 2: they would be putting up to say that. Hang on, man,
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Speaker 2: actually I don't know you, but they've given a key
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Speaker 2: piece of information. Oh hang on it, they know what
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Speaker 2: school I go to? Ah, right, and in a big
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Speaker 2: school to make out that you're a friend of a
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Speaker 2: friend that's legitimate. Potentially for a young person and their
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Speaker 2: thought processes, that's a form of social engineering. So unfortunately, yes,
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Speaker 2: we do see it in a variety of different grooming
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Speaker 2: and extortion type circumstances. Additionally, we absolutely see a lot
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Speaker 2: of kids in school uniforms in the collections. And as
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Speaker 2: you might appreciate, over the years when we've been seizing devices,
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Speaker 2: the amount of data and the amount of images of
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Speaker 2: that actually equates to just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
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Speaker 2: And we don't want to necessarily see all of these
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Speaker 2: what we might call innocent images ending up in these
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Speaker 2: collections because it's hard to know why they're in there,
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Speaker 2: what has the offended done with those images, how have
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Speaker 2: they interacted with them, and why would they even want
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Speaker 2: them to be in there, And we've got no idea
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Speaker 2: how they ended up there necessarily, and it might have
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Speaker 2: been due to just poor security on behalf of the
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Speaker 2: young person themselves or maybe the adult.
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Speaker 1: I really appreciate you being patient with me in me
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Speaker 1: asking that question, but I can't help but think that
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Speaker 1: it's one of those things that people must be rolling
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Speaker 1: their eyes about. At least a portion of the population,
6:44
Speaker 1: we'll be rolling their eyes about and saying, oh, for
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Speaker 1: goodness sakes, we have to be scared of everything. We
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Speaker 1: can not just post a picture of my kids. So
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Speaker 1: let's move to the practical realities. Then if there are
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Speaker 1: and of course I take you at your word on this,
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Speaker 1: I absolutely believe you if there are bad actors out
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Speaker 1: there who have wicked and evil intentions in terms of
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Speaker 1: the way that they might interact either with our children
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Speaker 1: or just imagery of our children online, but we still
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Speaker 1: want to share that photo with the grandparents, or with
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Speaker 1: the artists and uncles, or with our friends circle on
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Speaker 1: social media platforms. I mean, it feels like we should
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Speaker 1: have that right, We should be able to do that
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Speaker 1: and do so in a way that doesn't put our
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Speaker 1: children or our families at risk. What kind of advice
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Speaker 1: does the Australian centativecount child exploitation ace in the Austraie
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Speaker 1: Federal Police. What kind of advice do you give to
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Speaker 1: parents so that they can do so safely.
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Speaker 2: It's really not all that complex. What our message here is.
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Speaker 2: It's about urging parents who want to share those images
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Speaker 2: and we understand parents will want to do that, and
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Speaker 2: that's one of the key benefits in these sorts of
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Speaker 2: social media platforms is to share. Just make sure they
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Speaker 2: have appropriate privacy settings in place. That's allways suggesting, so
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Speaker 2: you know, you should only share those images with people
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Speaker 2: that you know and trust. We would ideally suggest that
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Speaker 2: parents if they want to share anything on their own
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Speaker 2: social media platforms so that they actually know everybody that
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Speaker 2: they're friends with, are they artificially creating a vulnerbound ability
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Speaker 2: because they have friends that I actually know in the
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Speaker 2: real world. So this is an opportunity for parents to
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Speaker 2: do a little bit of a privacy checkup, and there
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Speaker 2: are ways to do that depending on what platform you're on,
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Speaker 2: that are pretty easy. We would just say, have a
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Speaker 2: think about who might actually need access to these children,
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Speaker 2: and yes, keep all of the family in there. That
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Speaker 2: That's how Facebook currently is really the space for that
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Speaker 2: type of sharing. This is why the teenagers have left
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Speaker 2: that particular platform, we know in droves because it's become
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Speaker 2: that kind of more family oriented and we have a
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Speaker 2: lot of the grandparents that have moved into that space,
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Speaker 2: which is a positive because I think, you know, that's
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Speaker 2: one of the real pro technology aspects that we can
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Speaker 2: promote to say that for some older Stonans it is
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Speaker 2: actually a way to keep connected, particularly if there's any
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Speaker 2: tyranny of distance, as we frequently experience in this country.
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Speaker 1: But it's also a protective factor, right, Like if you
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Speaker 1: know that your parents and your grandparents, and your aunties
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Speaker 1: and your uncles and all of your extended family are
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Speaker 1: on that platform, then you're much less likely to post
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Speaker 1: things that could be incriminating. You're going to be on
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Speaker 1: your best behavior.
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Speaker 2: Yes, for the young people, that's not just say that
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Speaker 2: they're on other platforms that parents may or may not
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Speaker 2: know about and that they might be doing slightly riskier things.
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Speaker 2: But with the focus on parents, we feel that there's
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Speaker 2: an opportunity for parents to act as good role models.
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Speaker 2: So if parents are giving some thought to the type
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Speaker 2: of material and the online presence that they're responsible for curating,
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Speaker 2: then they're good role models for their children as well.
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Speaker 2: If young people grow up in that environment where parents
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Speaker 2: sharing absolutely everything, then it could be that young people
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Speaker 2: see that as quite normalized behavior and that there is
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Speaker 2: a risk where a young person won't necessarily do the
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Speaker 2: same sense checking and you know, showed the same level
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Speaker 2: of care when it comes to posting. So I think
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Speaker 2: it's part of a broader conversation in a family unit,
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Speaker 2: and it's also there's some ethical considerations here as well.
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Speaker 2: Do the kids themselves want to have their images shared?
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Speaker 2: And that's one question, And if kids knew that it
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Speaker 2: was only in a limited and controlled environment, then maybe
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Speaker 2: they're comfortable with that. But they themselves have a role
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Speaker 2: in this and maybe some voice. And the other question
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Speaker 2: that we sometimes ask of parents is what do you
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Speaker 2: seek the ethics are of sharing images on your profile
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Speaker 2: of other children? Do you seek the permission of other
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Speaker 2: parents to do that? You know of parents talking amongst
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Speaker 2: each other about the appropriateness of sharing those sorts of images.
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Speaker 2: So I think these are considerations and questions that I'm
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Speaker 2: not sure people are having those sorts of conversations generally.
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Speaker 1: While you were sharing those ideas, I just jumped into
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Speaker 1: my Facebook profile and attempted to just as a rehearsal
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Speaker 1: to see how easy this is. Just went to share
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Speaker 1: a picture of from one of my photo albums. And
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Speaker 1: when you jump into Facebook, all you have to do
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Speaker 1: is there's a button underneath your name. When you're creating
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Speaker 1: a post and it says who do you want to
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Speaker 1: share it with? So I've clicked on that, and I
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Speaker 1: can share it publicly with anyone on or off Facebook.
11:39
Speaker 1: I can share it with my friends, or there's another
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Speaker 1: button close friends or friends accept or specific friends or
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Speaker 1: only me. And then there's custom audiences that you can create.
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Speaker 1: So I've got a handful of custom audiences in my
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Speaker 1: personal profile on Facebook, where if I'm sharing stuff that
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Speaker 1: is perhaps a little bit more personal, it only goes
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Speaker 1: to that really close group of people, where if it's
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Speaker 1: something more I don't know, ostentatious, then I can share
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Speaker 1: it a lot more publicly. It's very very easy to
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Speaker 1: do it, like you said, but I'm going to guess
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Speaker 1: that most of the time many people are just popping
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Speaker 1: it up there and pressing the share button and out
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Speaker 1: it goes.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, we think that might be happening. And even if
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Speaker 2: people are posting your friends only, they may have accepted
12:23
Speaker 2: friendship requests a long time ago and they're not actually
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Speaker 2: really real well friends. So having a little think about
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Speaker 2: what does your friendship group actually look like? And do
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Speaker 2: you actually genuinely know everybody that you are friends with?
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Speaker 2: And do you know that that's where all of these
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Speaker 2: images are going of your child with or without their consent.
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Speaker 1: Detective Superintendent Jane Crossling from ACE, the Australian Center to
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Speaker 1: Counter Child Exploitation. Is there anything else that you think
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Speaker 1: parents really need to know about other than what we've
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Speaker 1: talked about That is, yes, it's okay to share, but
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Speaker 1: do it responsibly. Make sure you know who you're sharing
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Speaker 1: within how check those settings and check on permission, like
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Speaker 1: make sure that the people that you're sharing the images
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Speaker 1: of are cool with you sharing that. Is there anything
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Speaker 1: else that would be really important for parents to take
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Speaker 1: home from this conversation?
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Speaker 2: This is just part of a broader conversation that parents
13:15
Speaker 2: need to have with children from the moment that a
13:18
Speaker 2: child is going to start engaging with technology. So we
13:22
Speaker 2: absolutely advocate for very very early conversations. Given children, you know,
13:28
Speaker 2: at very very young ages start interacting with that technology,
13:31
Speaker 2: that is the time to start having conversations about what
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Speaker 2: can that device do, who can they connect with when
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Speaker 2: they're on a device, what are the expectations around its usage.
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Speaker 2: We recommend that families consider the contracts that we've mentioned before,
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Speaker 2: where you can sit down as a family unit and
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Speaker 2: actually work out how technology is appropriately used in that
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Speaker 2: household from the moment a young person is actually getting
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Speaker 2: access to a device, and then having those conversations around
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Speaker 2: what does a trusted family member or adult look like
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Speaker 2: in the event that they do need to talk to somebody.
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Speaker 2: These are all parts of the holistic approach we would
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Speaker 2: want to take to online safety. Ensuring that there are
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Speaker 2: open doors and ongoing communications so that if something were
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Speaker 2: to go wrong, they would know to bring that problem
14:28
Speaker 2: to the parent. Having a parent actually sit down and
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Speaker 2: look at their own settings, but also the settings of
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Speaker 2: any other technology that the young person is using as well.
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Speaker 2: Just having that engagement I think is really critical, and
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Speaker 2: that means also bringing the child in on the conversation
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Speaker 2: about what is getting shared. And you know, as a parent,
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Speaker 2: I realized now I've posted some what I think of
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Speaker 2: funny images of my daughter and she's made reference years
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Speaker 2: later just sort of say, you know, never checked with me, mum,
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Speaker 2: And I realized, no, no, I actually didn't, and yes
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Speaker 2: it was only shared to friends, But I realize now
15:07
Speaker 2: that I probably should have been getting just a little
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Speaker 2: bit more, you know, consent from her and having that
15:13
Speaker 2: level of engagement. We talked about safety messages, but we
15:17
Speaker 2: didn't talk about those sorts of things as well. So
15:20
Speaker 2: I think, you know, the obvious thing that we've been
15:25
Speaker 2: talking about is back to school, but this is this
15:27
Speaker 2: goes beyond that, and the timing of some of our
15:30
Speaker 2: messaging has been back to school, but it doesn't just
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Speaker 2: stop there. So the obvious message is, you know, don't
15:36
Speaker 2: don't show school logos, don't stand in front of your
15:38
Speaker 2: house with your street name or your house number, don't
15:41
Speaker 2: stand in front of the school sign. It just gives
15:45
Speaker 2: way too much information that makes it very, very easy
15:48
Speaker 2: for a young person to be grammed. But then the
15:51
Speaker 2: conversation can't just stop there. It has to It has
15:53
Speaker 2: to be in every facet of their life, when they're
15:55
Speaker 2: playing sport, when they're en after school activities and things
15:58
Speaker 2: like that, every facet of their life. It just needs
16:01
Speaker 2: to be an ongoing component in a much more holistic way.
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Speaker 1: Really grateful for this conversation. Detective of Superintendent Jane Crossling
16:10
Speaker 1: from this train and senator account a Child Exploitation or ACE.
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Speaker 1: All the resources for parents who want to know more
16:15
Speaker 1: are at the ACE website. That's a triple C, dot
16:19
Speaker 1: GV dot A, you yes, and we'll link to that
16:22
Speaker 1: in the show notes. Jane, thank you for your pragmatic
16:25
Speaker 1: approach to this, because I really thought for a moment
16:29
Speaker 1: that you're going to say, stop sharing photos of your kids.
16:31
Speaker 1: I love that you've said, do it, but do it
16:33
Speaker 1: the right way, do it safely, and make sure that
16:36
Speaker 1: you're protecting the interests of your child, and keep on
16:38
Speaker 1: having those conversations. I look forward to having you back
16:40
Speaker 1: on the podcast again. Look forward to that really soon.
16:43
Speaker 1: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Roland from
16:45
Speaker 1: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer, and for
16:48
Speaker 1: more information about keeping your kids safe, check out the
16:50
Speaker 1: ACE website or how to make you family happier. Please
16:52
Speaker 1: visit this at happy families dot com dot you m