Mr. Drew Harris:

There is a general comment about children and young people on social media. There is a definite modus operandiamong those who wish to abuse children in the most egregious form. They are well-schooled in appearing as children on social media to gain the trust of a child. Children often have the same passwords. They share passwords to get into all of their accounts, and then progressively groom that child into providing images.

That becomes intimidation and blackmail and then, in effect, the abuse descends. A survey in the news last week stated that 24% of six-year-olds have a smartphone. I would say to all parents that they need to be really careful about what is happening on that smartphone. In effect, the modus operandiis to take over that account and then to intimidate the child. That is what we are dealing with.

Deputies have spoken about the extent to which the Internet and social media are part and parcel of our lives. There are real risks with it as well, and there are real predators out there. There is an international effort in law enforcement to try to counter this, but the volumes are huge. It is an extraordinary, extensive crime. We want to play our full part as a nation in terms of combatting this but working successfully with other law enforcement agencies both in Europe and the US in terms of countering this crime.