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The result was instant and gratifying for all those parents who have seen their loved ones suffer not only physical but also mental anguish for years when Microsoft launched a programme to check sexual exploitation of children on the Internet on Thursday.
The software programme has been exclusively designed to police the Internet where millions of sexually explicit pictures of children are posted on a daily basis.
The tool, called Child Exploitation Tracking System (CETS), reports Microsoft on its website, led to “Toronto Police Service's Sex Crimes Unit to charge a man previously arrested on child-pornography allegations with sexually assaulting a 4-year-old-girl, taking pornographic pictures of her and distributing them on the Internet.”
The tool provides assistance as well as promotes collaboration between the law enforcement authorities everywhere to stop exploitation of children.
"Our vision is to support more effective child-exploitation policing by enabling collaboration and information sharing across police services," says David Hemler, president of Microsoft Canada. "The tracking system will serve as a repository of information and will also be used as an investigative tool."
Inspector Jennifer Strachan, officer-in-charge with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's National Child Exploitation Coordination Center, praises CETS for making linkages between the Internet industry and the police that have helped in the execution of warrants. She also applauds the tool's use of SharePoint Portal Server to help track trends and post best practices.
"The old ways of policing won't meet the needs of today's cyber criminals," Strachan says. "Industry created this environment, and Microsoft is setting a good example by realizing that with this innovation also comes accountability. Law enforcement will never be industry, and industry will never be law enforcement, but we need to keep the best interests of the people we serve in mind."
The size of the problem can be assumed from the importance that the law enforcement agencies are attaching to it by mobilising a huge infrastructure to fight against it. Sydney Morning Herald says that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has seen a 2000 per cent increase in the number of child pornography images on the Internet since 1996 and Canadian police estimate that more than 100,000 websites contain images of child sexual abuse.
But considering that a close relative is responsible for such abuse in some 95% of cases, how effective Internet policing can be in entering the family fortress to nab the evildoer is yet to be ascertained. |