VANCOUVER –
The massive move online sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic has coincided with a boom in so-called “sex scams,” new data from Statistics Canada shows.
As authorities seek to educate youth and parents about online sex crimes, experts are calling for more regulation, education and enforcement.
Sexual extortion or sexual extortion occurs when someone threatens to distribute private, often sexually explicit material online if the victim does not comply with their demands, usually in exchange for money.
The crime gained national attention nearly a decade ago when 15-year-old Amanda Todd of Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, died by suicide after posting a video in which she used flash cards to describe being tormented by anonymous cyberbullying. It has been viewed more than 14 million times.
The trial of her abuser, Dutch national Aydin Koban, began in British Columbia Supreme Court in June.
He pleaded not guilty to extortion, harassment, communicating with a youth for the purpose of committing a sexual offense and possession and distribution of child pornography. He has not been charged in connection with Todd’s death.
Jurors unanimously convicted him on all five charges he faced Saturday after a day of deliberations.
Sigi Arnason, associate executive director at the Canadian Center for Child Protection, said the problem has grown exponentially since Todd took her life in October 2012.
“It’s out of control,” she said in an interview.
Police across the country are issuing warnings to the public about sexual extortion scams targeting young people.
“Unfortunately, police around the world have tragically seen some of these incidents end in victims taking their own lives,” said Cpl. Mark Sobiereraj said in a news release last week. “We urge parents and guardians to talk to children about the potential dangers, emphasizing that they can turn to you for help.”
Statistics Canada data released Tuesday show that police-reported extortion cases in Canada have increased by nearly 300 percent over the past decade, but crime has significantly increased during the pandemic.
Incidents of non-consensual distribution of intimate images involving adult or child victims increased by 194 cases in 2021, a nine percent jump from the previous year and a 52 percent increase from the previous five-year average.
“These disturbing increases are being facilitated by social media platforms and other electronic service providers,” said Canadian Child Advocacy Centre’s executive director, Lianna McDonald, in a news release. “This should be a wake-up call.”
Cybertip.ca, a national online child sexual abuse hotline, said it had received an “unprecedented volume of reports from youth, and sometimes their concerned parents, of falling victim to aggressive sexual extortion tactics,” amounting to about 300 cases per online blackmail per month.
Wayne McKay, professor emeritus of law at Dalhousie University, said the increase can be explained in part by awareness and better policing of cybercrime, but noted research also shows that online child sexual abuse often goes unreported.
A review of 322 sexual extortion cases received by Cybertip.ca in July found that when the gender was known, 92 percent involved boys or young men.
“The review also showed an emerging tactic where the victim is sent nude images of children by the person behind the fake account. The offender will then threaten to report the victim to the police, claiming to be in possession of child sexual abuse material. money immediately follows,” the child protection center said in a news release this week.
David Fraser, an internet and privacy lawyer at Canadian law firm McInnes Cooper in Halifax, said the main reason some young people don’t come forward is that they believe they could be accused of child pornography in their own image. He said this is a widespread misconception, sometimes even among law enforcement.
“We have to be very careful about the messages we send to young people, just to make sure there are safe places they can go and get support before things escalate,” Fraser said.
He cited a 2001 Supreme Court of Canada decision that established a “personal use” exception to child pornography regulations. It says young people have the right to create intimate images of themselves as long as they do not depict illegal sexual activity, are kept for personal use only and are created with the consent of the people in the image.
Fraser would like to see more police resources and education on the issue.
“Overall, I have seen a lack of skill and competence on the part of the police to take existing laws and translate them into the online context,” he said.
“Blackmail is blackmail, whether you’re blackmailing someone by threatening to reveal nude photos you’ve blackmailed them into providing, or blackmailing someone through other forms of more conventional blackmail.”
Molly Reynolds, a lawyer with Torys LLP in Toronto, said her caseload of civil sexual-extortion cases has increased significantly.
“The demand is huge. It’s at least a 10-year-old crisis, and we’re just starting to understand it more broadly across Canada,” she said. “There are still a lot of people who really don’t come to the attention of the police when they report this criminal behavior.”
She said civil court is usually a better option for older victims who know their perpetrator.
“You’re more likely to see a law enforcement response if it can fall under child pornography offenses and not just non-consensual distribution offenses or voyeurism offenses,” she said.
“(Children) are somehow better served through the criminal process, whereas adults, I think, more often have to go to the civil process.”
Darren Lorre, chief training officer at White Hatter, an internet safety and digital literacy training company, said the law had not kept pace with technological advances.
He said so-called deep fakes, where an existing image or video is used to create fake but believable footage, will create new challenges as extortionists will no longer have to force a person to take explicit action.
“The reality is that people will take advantage of technology and sometimes turn it into a weapon. That’s the problem with deep fakes. I feel deep fakes are going to be weaponized, especially when it comes to technologically facilitated sexual assault,” said Lohr, who is a retired Victoria Police sergeant.
Reynolds agreed, but said he didn’t think the law would ever be able to “deal with the technology and the harm it can cause.”
“I think there’s a really big role for the courts to interpret what we already have and allow it to evolve just as technological risks evolve.” We need to be able to make it easier for people to take these cases to court, whether criminal or civil, and to test the boundaries,” she said.
MacDonald, with the Canadian Center for Child Advocacy, began calling for greater regulation of social media companies, including Snapchat and Instagram, where the organization found most of the harm to children occurs.
“It’s an ongoing problem that’s getting worse, and so it really raises the question, what are these companies doing to keep kids safe?” “It’s unbelievable that social media platforms allow adult strangers to directly reach and target our children without any repercussions,” she said in a news release Thursday.
Lohr said he had called for years for the creation of an online regulatory agency, such as the Australian e-Safety Commissioner.
“They basically have a plan on how to do that,” he said. “We need something like this here in our country.
The Department of Canadian Heritage said in a statement that the federal government is “currently developing an approach to address harmful content online, which includes the potential creation of a regulatory authority.”
As part of that process, it says Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez is “currently holding roundtables across Canada to listen to victims of online harm, including children and youth.”
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on August 6, 2022.
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