Chat room spies


Message posted by SEZBRONCO on June 12, 2004 at 11:44:54 PST:

http://itvibe.com/default.aspx?NewsID=2619
Police to spy into online chat rooms ...General
Posted on Thursday, June 10, 2004 at 18:44 by Laurence Norah

In a global initiative to try and cut down the abuse of children through
online chat rooms, police around the world are joining forces to patrol chat
rooms and try to protect children. Officers from the UK's National Crime
Squad (NCS), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police (RCMP), Interpol and the Australian Federal Police (AFP),
will be working together to create the International Virtual Global
Taskforce.

The idea is that the taskforce will be able to monitor chatrooms across the
world on a round the clock basis, although the idea is not that officers
will form some kind of big brother presence, prowling round chatrooms and
interrupting people's chat, but rather they will be recognisable by an
special icon which will appear in the chatroom. How quiet said chat room is
likely to go after the appearance of this icon will remain to be seen.

NCS Assistant Chief Constable said the following about the new taskforce:

If a paedophile is grooming someone online and this icon appears, how
comfortable do you think they are going to feel?

People feel safer when police are present. It's as simple as that. There is
no 'big brother' initiative here. This is about reassurance through
visibility

Well, we're all behind the idea of stopping the abuse of children, but
exactly how far the authorities are going to intrude into people's private
conversations in the name of child safety is yet to be seen. We'll have to
wait and see how the online communities react to these ideas. Until then,
we'll keep you posted.



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