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A STARK WARNING about taking and sharing sexual images has been given by an Irish garda who specialises in sexual crimes and crimes against children.
He says that as the age that children are given mobile phones gets younger and younger, parents need to ensure they talk to their offspring about safety online.
In addition, he says that gardaí investigating such cases have to view disturbing material in order to confirm that an offence has taken place.
Detective Superintendent Declan Daly has worked for 27 years in An Garda Síochána, and been a detective for 22 of them. He is currently a Detective Superintendent in the Garda National Protective Service Bureau, with responsibility for the investigation of sexual crimes and crimes against children. Daly is also responsible for the investigation of online exploitation of children.
On top of all this, Daly is Ireland’s representative on the Violent Crimes Against Children International Taskforce, a specialist group for combating child abuse material on the internet. He spoke this week at the NOTA (National Organisation for the Treatment of Sex Abusers) conference on best practice in combatting online sex offenders.
‘There are online predators’
After his talk, Daly outlined to TheJournal.ie how parents need to talk to their children about keeping safe in an era where images can go viral in a matter of minutes.
“The internet is a great and wonderful too,l and it’s an educational tool when used properly,” says Daly. “But at any given time on the internet, unfortunately there are dangers and there are online predators that are there who are seeking to exploit unaware and vulnerable children online.”
Some of the examples he gives make for disturbing reading. “If you post an image online and you give an image to someone who says they are a 15-year-old boy – that may not be a 15-year-old boy, that could be a 50-year-old man who has a sexual interest in children. You have to be very careful” he says.
Young people may be in a relationship – they may have shared images of each other, and that is a danger then because that relationship could end and the images could be shared by one person. Or we had a situation where a child takes an image of themselves and gives the phone to someone else inadvertently, who goes through and sees the image, and then it’s shared.
He and his colleagues also deal with cases where someone uses a nude or sexual image to blackmail another person. “[They say] ‘I have this image of you, I am going to give this to all of your school if you don’t give me [something].”
There have been reports of young people taking their lives due to such blackmail.
“Internationally that has happened and it has been well-documented cases where children, young people have taken their lives because they have been victim to this crime,” says Daly.
“The hardship and the emotional impact that this has on a child, maybe a 14-year-old child, maybe an image of her naked is sent around school or Facebook – you can imagine the impact that has. And it’s really, really tragic stuff. That’s why in An Garda Siochána we take this type of crime exceptionally seriously.”
So the message is do not post sexual images online – that’s the important message.
He said that he and his colleagues have dealt with “very young” children in relation to such cases. “Children are internet enabled from a very early stage now,” he says. “Not just on the phone, you have online gaming for example.”
He is very clear on sharing sexual photos and how, once they’re online, they’re almost impossible to remove.
“It’s very difficult to get it back and it’s very difficult to get it down,” he said of such images. “I did say humorously at the conference that really this was an effective yardstick – before you post an image online [ask yourself] would I show this image to my mother? If the answer to that question is no, you should really have a conversation with yourself.”
“When they are on the internet they may have tendency to let their guard down,” says Daly of young people’s behaviour online. “Face-to-face they might be more reserved. Once that guard is down they are more open to attack from a predator.”
Starting young
Daly says that children as young as 12 are getting phones for big events like Confirmations, so the conversation around behaviour needs to start young.
When a parent gives a young child of 12 or 13 a phone, it should come with that conversation piece and should come with certain rules.
He says that if a parent saw their child talking to a stranger, they would immediately want to know who they’re talking with – and it should be the same with a phone or the internet.
But he says parents can be “very comfortable giving a child access to the worldwide internet and all that entails” without that chat taking place.
But Daly also understands that parents’ knowledge of the internet and social media can vary, with some lacking knowledge and not having confidence in their advice. He says that any advice they do give can be very simple, alerting the child to dangers, and telling them about appropriate and inappropriate behaviour online.
He also says that parents should want their child to feel it’s OK to come talk to them about any issues they are experiencing – and not to feel worried that they may be punished.
Following the evidence
The bureau Daly works for covers a very broad brief: human trafficking, organised prostitution, adult sexual abuse, child sexual abuse, missing persons, and sex offenders.
How do they go about investigating such behaviour?
“Every interaction on the internet leaves an electronic footprint,” he says, adding that the case may then go to ‘mainstream policing’ and warrant being sent to the DPP, who will decide whether to prosecute.
“Follow the evidence,” says Daly, with an emphasis on keeping the victim protected.
As part of their job, Daly and colleagues have to view some disturbing images to verify that an offence of child sex abuse is taking place, which he says is “obviously difficult”, but they have support in work to help them deal with what they see.
“It’s not a nice part of our work but it’s a necessary part of our work,” he says. “But there are welfare supports there, they are very strong and very gifted and diligent people working in this area.”
He also notes that in terms of law enforcement worldwide, “we are a very small family”, so the gardaí can call on their colleagues in the FBI, Interpol, Homeland Security and others.
This collaboration is essential when the internet is essentially borderless.
His final message? “Use the internet well and use it appropriately, but for parents and children and young people, that awareness that there can be dangers on the internet should be there, and on no account should they post any explicit images online for any purpose, for any reason to anybody and really that’s a really important safety net right there.”
“Once it’s online it’s very difficult to get it back,” he warns.
In addition, he adds: “You’d never meet somebody or arrange to meet somebody online ever, that is absolutely a no-no. If that happens, if anyone makes an approach online you should go to your parents or go to trusted adult. And all this should be reported to An Garda Siochána, or to Tusla (the child protection agency).”
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We should build one in Cork – covering the whole county….
Breasts.
Could cover cork, would be an improvement
“Firing” homes with “juice”. Apple are so street.
Wouldn’t it better if they developed more power for their iPhone batteries?
This is good news and hopefullly more big rich companies will follow their example. Saw a progamme on tv last night about wind turbines in countries like Germany where locals are given a share in the wind farms unlike in Ireland where the locals are barely consulted let alone given a share.
Resistance to wind power in Germany is snowballing. And it needs to be noted that this resistance is grass roots and sustained almost entirely by volunteers and privately donated time and effort.
In the latest wind energy critical site http://www.vernunftkraft.de here has a report summarizing the performance of Germany’s wind turbines in 2014. Again the result is so ugly that the wind industry does not want anyone to see it.
Vernunftkraft.de writes in response to the wind industry’s recent boastings of yet another successful “record” year:
Rolf Schuster finalized the evaluation of the actual wind energy feed-in data in order to counter the propaganda with honest figures.
The most important result: 14.8 percent.
The program was very one sided. They didn’t mention the reason we use peat is for energy security, it’s the only fuel we have in the country that we can be self sufficient on. Yesterday we only had 12 MW of wind that’s less than 1% of our demand.
How do you think the other 99% came from. Wind isn’t as green as it appears and doesn’t reduce energy costs
Second time today you trot out you anti green energy guff. You post a link that to a hoax story about windmills that you don’t deny two weeks ago, Then you decry solar power because a 32 year old obsolete technology solar array was decommissioned in the US as evidence that modern solar power is useless. Now you are here trying to convince us that one of the smartest and richest tech company on earth have got it wrong. If I remember you are also an ardent fan of nuclear….Agenda?Lobby much?
Make your mind up about which comment you are having trouble with or is the subject all too much for you?
Gosh, Apple are about to spend even more than Solyndra, the bankrupted Northern California solar-panel maker that burned through $535 million in federal guaranteed loans just to prove than solar Pv is a flop. But then roughly 80% of the Department of Energy’s $20.5 billion in loans granted “went to companies either run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers–individualswho were bundlers, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, orlarge donors to the Democratic Party.”
In 2008, Mr. Obama promised his policies would create 5 million “green collar” jobs but failed , will Apple have the same success ?
We should copy Germany and plaster the place with 27000 wind towers. The low capacity factor of German wind turbines makes wind electricity expensive. Driven by increased costs from renewables, household electricity rates almost doubled from 13.9 eurocents per kilowatt-hour to 26.0 eurocents per kilowatt-hour from 2000 to 2013. Today, Germany has the second highest electricity rates in Europe, more than triple U.S. electricity prices. The story is even worse 2 years on
My mind is made up Mort but I have a day job and don’t have time to spend my day blogging here pretending to be an ordinary Joe, so I don’t always have the time to counter your one man propaganda machine.
Let’s see, any article on the environment and you are poo-pooing renewables and see nothing of any merit in them, even when Apple endorses solar you try to deflect by pointing to some article about Germany.Now when it is nuclear you see no wrong and even Fukuyama can be reasonably explained away, as if it could. Facts and figures always to hand. Any dissent and you cry luddite.
All Muslins are bad. All Muslims. All Israelis are good. All. Anyone who questions this is a,- what’s that stock phrase you use? Oh yes, ‘Islamofacist apparatchik’. In other word, someone who disagree with you.
You were a cheer leader when Ghaddaffi was overthrown & Libya descended into chaos. When people try to escape this hell by getting to Italy, there you are on the shore shouting, go home you are not wanted.
Now you have the neck to tell me I am muddled?
For anyone in doubt, read Uncle Mort’s exchanges with Charlie Carlisle. Caught right out there Mort. http://www.thejournal.ie/athea-wind-farm-1915304-Feb2015/#comments
Germany may have higher electricity price than the US but the don’t have the US reputation of being one of the world’s dirties economy per capita either. Germany is twenty years ahead in that sense. But the fossil fuel and nuclear industry will try everything to keep it down. No trick too sneaky.
http://www.wind-works.org/cms/index.php?id=340&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=1679&cHash=a6ffbf36a98ab3ba82069d2486ebd7ae
So there not really gonna blow €850M, had it been a wind farm they were building different story, just saying.
Thank you!! My thought precisely! What a biased headline.
€750 million is roughly $850 million.
“The farm will cost $850 million to build and will provide enough juice to fire 60,000 homes.
Despite the enormous cost Cook insists that the farm will be more than enough to power Apple’s new headquarters in Cupertino and will save the tech giant money in the long run.”
What’s not clear about the article?
What is wrong with solar panels ? Fail to understand your criticism
What the hell is biased about the headline ?
The headline originally said “Apply blow €750 million….” which implies they’re wasting the money. My point was related to that. There headline made it sound like investing in solar energy was a waste. They’ve since changed the headline.
Blow? It’s not oil or booze it’s solar. INVEST is the word you dummies
The Chinese marquee is notoriously tough to enter ;)
Sugarcoated bullsh*t..
There is nothing noble about what they are doing, they just want to enter the electricity market and cut costs to their own consumption, are they planning to give away the electricity they generate?
What good have apple really done? If they wanted to make the world a better place why not start with their workforce, the only company I know of that has to install suicide prevention nets around their factory.. Provide your workers with a decent living wage! You can afford it! You are a $700billion company! Also stop ripping off the consumer with your iShite which is only made to last a couple of years…
You mean Foxconn? Who made the laptop/phone you’re commenting here on? It was probably made there too. Apple have been the only company that I’ve read about actually push for change in those places, doing checks on them and working to get them to a higher standard. The media obsession with Apple means only Apple gets mentioned when something bad happens at Foxconn, even though your laptop, phone, games consoles, tablet, e-reader, smart watch, all probably made there.
And regarding suicide levels, apparently they’re in line with the average rates in China, there’s just so many people working for Foxconn it happens a lot. Not great that ANYONE feels the need to take their own life, but nothing seems to point to Foxconn leading to any more than anywhere else in China.
Why would they give away the energy they’re generating? They’re reducing their dependence on fossil fuels, which is a good thing. I feel like Apple could provide every man, woman and child with free electricity and you’d complain that they’re doing the energy employees out of work.
No they want to harvest subsidies from poor people
Dumb, ill informed trolllike comment. Check your facts first before spouting such rubbish
“and will provide enough to juice to fire 60,000 homes.” Balleaux. May I repeat “Not forgetting the scam of solar power which gets frequent mention by greenies here on the Journal. Hawaii and California would seem to be ideal for solar compared to rainy Ireland and look what happened to them.
http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/4686/Hawaiirsquos-Future-Abandoned-Solar-Farms-Clutter-California-Desert.aspx
At 9 p.m. on July 16 2014 total wind power output was a mere 0.334 gigawatts and the day’s last rays of sunlight were delivering only 0.103 gigawatts of power. That means the two sources of wind and solar combined were putting out only [(0.334 + 0.103)/65]100 = 0.7% of their rated capacity. That in turn means the remaining 99.3% had to come in large part from the conventional coal, nuclear and gas power plants.
Germany’s installed wind/solar systems on average operate roughly at about 15% of their capacity.
solar PV is even worse than wind :
http://irishenergyblog.blogspot.ie/2015/01/wind-energy-wasteful-use-of-resources.html
As Charlie Carlisle said to you last Saturday.
That’s the nature of wind energy. It’s budgeted for before the farm goes up (bear in mind that this tech isn’t exactly new).
Think of it more like a company that has one emoployee and hires six contractors for the busy days.
Check out the EirGrid dashboard to see how it’s actually quite economical, as when the wind blows we cut down on our natural gas consumption and imported electricity. If it’s blowing overnight, we even manage a few exports to the UK.
http://www.eirgrid.com/media/All-Island_Wind_and_Fuel_Mix_Report_Summary_2013.pdf (2013 summary, as the 2014 summary has not yet been compiled)
You’ll never get the same reliability or energy density with wind as with fossil fuels, however it isn’t intended to get that. It’s a supplemental source (and if it’s economical, then it’s probably quite productive).
We need everything we can get if we’re going to continue to run our fridges and our computers and our 400 inch tvs and our endless street lighting and our washing machines and our tumble driers.
the savings are tiny relative to the cost.
the main problem now is that there is an energy bubble because nobody bothered to check whether wind could actually replace conventional plant which is driving industry out
An apple a day keeps the end of the world at bay.
Hey FRANK. Numbers for ya to terrorise us with…
That explains why they’re head hunting Tesla engineers.
Typical, spending millions to throw precious resources and fossil fuels down the drain, What a Waste, people in future will curse us for wasting these resources
http://irishenergyblog.blogspot.ie/2015/01/wind-energy-wasteful-use-of-resources.html
I wonder how much Co2 will be produced just manufacturing all those solar panels? It’ll be a long time before that solar farm balances it’s Co2 books alone!
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