Question Period Note: Child Sexual Exploitation Online during COVID-19

• The Government of Canada remains committed to protecting children from those who wish to do them harm and to preventing the sexual exploitation of children online.

• New information regarding the way offenders are mobilizing to exploit children during this public health crisis is of grave concern.

• We continue to work with key partners in Canada, such as the RCMP’s National Child Exploitation Crime Centre and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, to understand and counter threats to children as a result of their increased presence online.

• We are working with the Canadian Centre for Child Protection to ensure they have the resources needed to provide 24/7 seamless support to Canadians through cybertip.ca, Project Arachnid and other services.

• Given the borderless nature of this crime, we also work with international partners such as the Five Country Ministerial. With them, we recently launched the Voluntary Principles to Counter Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, a guide for digital industry on how to counter child sexual exploitation online.

• In addition, Canada recently collaborated with our Five Country Ministerial partners and digital industry on public service announcements to raise awareness of increased online risks to children at this time.

• These efforts complement Canada’s National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet, which supports prevention, victims and law enforcement.

Impact of COVID-19

Children and teens are spending more time online as a result of school and daycare closures and social distancing measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. When online, many minors often have limited oversight by parents and guardians. This greatly increases their risk of being recruited and groomed online, including for the purpose of sexual exploitation. The continued closure of key community institutions also limits society’s ability to monitor children, including at-risk children and youth. This can place them at greater risk of being exploited online or groomed. The confinement of children within their homes also makes it more difficult for community services to identify signs of abuse, which can lead to increased sexual abuse of children within the home, and potential increases in the production and sharing of child sexual abuse material.

Public Safety is working with key national partners such as the RCMP and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P), as well as with international partners, such as the Five Eyes, to better understand the threat and to find solutions to better protect children and youth. The RCMP continues to monitor the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on online sexual child exploitation, drawing upon its expertise in operational support to domestic and international law enforcement, victim identification, research and intelligence.

Law enforcement partners in Canada and abroad have all noticed increased online activity related to the sexual exploitation of children during the pandemic. Of particular concern is activity by the “capper” community. Cappers are individuals who attempt to capture nude or sexual audio and video via webcam of boys and girls they target on various livestreaming platforms or applications. There is also increased sharing of information between offenders, such as best practices and techniques to get in touch with children and youth during the COVID-19 crisis.

Canada is also working closely with the Five Country Ministerial (FCM) and digital industry partners to develop solutions. For example, Microsoft, in collaboration with Facebook, Google, and the FCM, produced short videos to raise awareness of the enhanced risks to children and youth online during the COVID-19 crisis. These videos are generic, but are followed by country-specific information on where to find resources. In Canada, the videos refer to the C3P website. The videos also include a link to the Partnership to End Violence Against Children (EVAC) website, which hosts a repository of resources for parents and children. C3P is also hosting the videos on their COVID resource page.

National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet
Public Safety coordinates and oversees the implementation of the National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet and leads policy development related to this crime. Public Safety also provides contribution funding to C3P for the operation of Cybertip.ca. The RCMP’s National Child Exploitation Crime Centre (NCECC) is the national law enforcement arm of the National Strategy, functioning as the central point of contact for investigations into the online sexual exploitation of children across the country and internationally when the victim or offender is Canadian. Justice Canada reviews and develops legislation, and provides training, legal advice and support to federal strategy partners and others. The Strategy aims to:
• Coordinate and oversee federal efforts to combat child sexual exploitation online;
• Support law enforcement capacity to combat online child sexual exploitation;
• Enable the reporting of online child sexual exploitation to proper authorities;
• Support victims of online child sexual exploitation online by facilitating the removal of imagery/videos;
• Facilitate research on online child sexual exploitation to increase understanding of the scale/scope of the issue and inform action;
• Increase public awareness and reduce the stigma associated with reporting; and
• Foster government/industry collaboration to find new ways to combat this crime.

Key initiatives under the National Strategy have supported: increased public awareness of this crime; C3P’s operation of Cybertip.ca and the development of Project Arachnid, a web-crawling technology solution to identify and increase the rate of removal of child sexual abuse material; and the expansion of the RCMP’s NCECC investigation capacity.
Ongoing investments under the National Strategy total over $18 million per year. Some of Public Safety and the RCMP’s funding was provided through the It’s Time: Canada’s Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence (the GBV Strategy).
Recent investments of $22.24 million over three years, starting in 2019–20, support Public Safety’s enhanced efforts to raise awareness of this serious issue and reduce the stigma associated with reporting, increase Canada’s ability to pursue and prosecute offenders, and work together with industry to find new ways to combat the sexual exploitation of children online.

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