As this can be prevented not only on platform level but also on the point of entry, it is recommended that parents establish safe environments for their children to use the Internet, with reduced risk of encountering cyber grooming individuals.
Computer programs have been developed to analyse chat rooms and other instant messaging logs for suspicious activity. In 2005, Yahoo! chat rooms were investigated by the New York State attorney general's office for allowing users to create rooms whose names suggested they were being used for this purpose that October, Yahoo! agreed to "implement policies and procedures designed to ensure" that such rooms would not be allowed. In 2003, MSN implemented chat room restrictions to help protect children from adults seeking sexual conversations with them. A spokesman for Facebook responded to complaints by meeting CEOP directly in person, and said that they take safety issues "very seriously". Jim Gamble, leader of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) in the UK, said in 2010 that his office had received 292 complaints about Facebook users in 2009 but that none of the complaints had come directly from Facebook. Similar groups include Perverted-Justice, Dark Justice and Creep Catcher.įacebook has been involved in controversy as to whether it takes enough precautions against the sexual grooming of children. The news program Dateline NBC featured the recurring segment To Catch a Predator based on such activities. Some vigilante organizations use operatives posing online as underage teens to identify potential child molesters and pass information to the police. Children and teenagers with behavioural issues such as "high attention seeking" have a much higher risk than others. The majority of targeted children are girls, and most victimization occurs with mobile-phone support. Online grooming of children is most prevalent within the 13–17 age group (99% of cases), and particularly 13–14 (48%). Some abusers (sometimes posing as children themselves) chat with children online and make arrangements to meet with them in person. Sexual grooming of children also occurs on the Internet. In the U.S., case law draws a distinction between those two and some people accused of "grooming" have successfully used this defense. Suspected offenders have used the so-called " fantasy defense", the argument that they were only expressing fantasies and not plans of future behavior, to defend actions such as online communication.
They may also engage in hugging, kissing, or other physical contact, even when the child does not want it. Commonly, they show pornography to the child, or talk about sexual topics with the child, hoping to make it easy for the child to accept such acts, thus normalizing the behavior. They might give gifts or money to the child in exchange for sexual contact, or for no apparent reason. Child groomers might look for opportunities to have time alone with the child, which can be done by offering to babysit the groomers may also invite the child for sleepovers, for opportunistic bed sharing. A trusting relationship with the family means the child's parents are less likely to believe potential accusations. To establish a good relationship with a child and the child's family, child groomers might do several things: They might try to gain the child's or parents' trust by befriending them, with the goal of easy access to the child. Online grooming of children via chat rooms and webcams is an area COST team officers are encountering more and more.