Online Child Abuse-legal and Technological Approaches to Tackle It

Momina Imran (20090036)
Iqra Saif Agha (21090046)
Zoha Allawala (21090005)

Protecting the most vulnerable members of society should be an essential feature of any well-functioning legal system. A reputed non-governmental organization in Pakistan, in its annual report titled Cruel Numbers, painfully displays that the Pakistani state has failed to protect one of its highly vulnerable and defenseless groups, its children[1]. Child abuse has plagued our society for many years, and has only recently gained mainstream media attention, after the horrendous rape and murder of a six year old child in Kasur was reported in 2018. Although this atrocity led to more conversation and discourse on the evils of child abuse, very little has been done practically to eliminate such crimes. What is even more problematic in this era of technology and online social presence of larger society is that crimes such as child abuse now occupy the online sphere. Generally, child abuse may consist of acts such as rape, harassment, online child grooming (the solicitation of children for sexual purposes), live streaming of child abuse, child pornography, cyber-bullying, and other similar criminal acts against children under the age of eighteen. With regards to online child abuse, however, cyberspace allows for perpetrators of such crimes to maintain a high level of secrecy and anonymity, helping them to continue committing such crimes easily and for prolonged periods of time[2]. However, despite the high volume and risk of incidents relating to online child abuse, the existing laws in Pakistan still prove to be inadequate in the face of such crimes. This article will examine the current legal and technological approaches taken by Pakistan in its efforts to curb physical as well as online child abuse.

The constantly evolving online universe allows for a multitude of ways for predators to target, exploit, and abuse naïve children who actively occupy online spaces. Online child abuse has time and again been recognized as a global problem, which has led to European states signing directives[3] and conventions such as the Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse of 2007 (also referred to as the Lanzarote Convention), including the optional protocol which criminalizes child pornography. International Policing Agency INTERPOL’S statistics from 2008 created a database called the Child Abuse Image Database was able to identify more than six hundred victims across the globe, while United Kingdom’s Internet Watch Foundation identified almost 3,000 domains containing images of child sexual abuse[4]. In a similar vein, this article will aim to discuss the legal and technological approaches taken by Pakistan to identify and criminalize child abuse crimes committed specifically in the online or virtual space.

          In the recent past, large scale research has been conducted to uncover the effects that the Internet and online space has on children. Although many of these effects are conducive to their learning and socializing experiences, questions have arisen on the safety of such online spaces[5]. These questions force regulators and legislators alike to work towards creating age appropriate and controlled online environments so as to keep them safe from any form of exploitation or abuse. Similar to the online portals mentioned from other jurisdictions, Pakistan’s Digital Rights Foundation is reported to have collaborated with the Internet Watch Foundation to create a portal to ensure children’s safety. This portal would allow people to report child abuse incidents, and these reports would then be assessed by trained analysts[6]. Such an initiative is by far, an unprecedented feat for our country and is expected to provide real and effective ways to tackle online child abuse. From the legal perspective, it has been consistently found firstly, that laws pertaining to the protection of children are inherently vague and not sufficient to include all forms of abuse directed towards them. Moreover, there are barely any special provisions to differentiate between abuse against children and adults[7]. This puts both groups at an equal standing before the law, neglecting the higher vulnerability of children. One of the relevant laws worth mentioning here is the Balochistan Child Protection Act, 2016. Section 2(1)(t) puts forth an elaborate definition of mental violence against children. Sub-clause (vii) of the same section includes any psychological harassment of children by adults transmitted or conducted through the use of information technology, the internet, or cyber devices such as mobile phones. By expanding the scope of harassment, to include novel technologies, the Balochistan provincial legislature has recognized the existence of online child abuse and the long-term consequences it has on young minds.

The province of Punjab, has been quite active with respect to recognizing the need for law protecting the young of the society. However, the trends in the enactment of laws have only proved to be futile for the purposes of child abuse committed online. With the first Bill acknowledging and protecting children being introduced in 1952, the government only made a half-hearted effort to this cause, as it never issued a notification for this law to come into force. The second attempt to protect children from such acts was reflected in the form of the Punjab Children’s Ordinance in 1983, which was also never converted into an Act of Parliament. It was only in the year 2004 that the Punjab Assembly passed and enforced a law to protect children from some forms of exploitation and abuse. Such was in the form of the Punjab Destitute and Neglected Children Act 2004. However, even this attempt by the government was also half-hearted as it was to take effect only in some areas and from such date as the government may notify. This law does not address the various other kinds of abuse children may face, particularly sexual abuse which may carry on into the online sphere. Apart from this, there are many shortcomings of this law. The most glaring one being its language, which is impractical and consequently not properly enforceable by law enforcement authorities, who often are given minimal to no training or sensitization on such matters. The act has nevertheless, helped establish child protection units in certain cities of the Punjab, but the conditions in those are also dismal. This only furthers the notion that a piece of legislation holds very little value without a holistic understanding of the problems rampant in society and the co-operation of enforcement authorities who would inevitably be responsible to apply the law to its practical effect.

The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 (“PECA”) also aims curb online child sexual abuse and harassment and was enacted to apply to the whole of Pakistan. Section 21 of PECA pertains to modesty of a minor and a natural person. It prescribes the punishment of imprisonment, for a term which may extend to seven years and with fine which may extend to five million rupees in case any person is involved with online child abuse[8]. Moreover, Section 22 of PECA criminalizes production, distribution, transmission, and procurement of child pornography, through information systems, amongst others. This provision was no doubt, the need of the hour for Pakistan. However, the law has not been effectively employed so far because of two reasons. Firstly, people do not have the internet literacy to actually know the procedures they can follow to report online abuse and secondly, no mechanisms exists especially on local community levels like those of the police departments because of which people hesitate to go through the procedure with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).[9]

The heinous rape and murder of Zainab Ansari in 2018 created a huge outcry for penal action to be taken against individuals involved in the crime of child abuse. It was just one many such incidents that happened to receive the requisite media limelight to attract the attention of government officials. Prior to this, in 2015, number of such cases took place and were later exposed to be committed by a gang involved in sexually assaulting children and recording the assault in pictures or videos. As shocking as it was, not much attention was paid to it and the incidents were shoved under the rug by the authorities. Zainab’s unfortunate incident was an eye opener to the reality of how ill-equipped our police was to tackle the issue. It was not until help was sought from intelligence agencies operating in Pakistan and a particular team of data analysts from Information Technology University (ITU), that the mafia involved in online child abuse and child pornography was exposed.[10] Perhaps, since in the past no action had been taken against the perpetrators, it is suspected that the same mafia was involved in the 2018 incidents as well[11].

Recent incidents of child abuse made it glaringly obvious that to protect the most vulnerable of our society, our children from being victim to such heinous crimes, it is important that the matter is tackled, not only relying solely on legal provisions but also technologically. The websites and individuals involved in such activities take cover under the dark internet, also sometimes known as the dark web. This layered and covert part of the internet is usually used by perpetrators involved in drug smuggling, human trafficking, child abuse, terrorism etc. It provides a protective as well as effective way for individuals involved in these activities to continue their transactions safely and without any fear[12]. One important thing to note about the dark web is that it is very inaccessible through simple search engines and soft wares. Thus, it requires special programs and soft wares to be able to access it and view, upload or download material. This makes clear that, to curb online child abuse and to locate the perpetrators in order to save the children, who are at a risk to fall a victim to this, it is important for our law enforcement agencies and police departments to be adequately equipped with the relevant technological tools and skills. Following are some of the ways that our law enforcement agencies can use in tackling the online child abuse.

1. Image analysis and database

This is the most common type of tool employed by various organizations around the world to locate and take down the child abuse content. It involves use of applications such as PhotoDNA. It helps by creating a unique mark for each image considering its pixels, dimensions frames etc. It can then use that particular image to find any similar images off the internet, in turn helping create a digital database for the removal of such content. It has been used by National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (US), United Kingdom Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre, as well as Interpol, and has helped recover many children and uncover millions of explicit contents involving children.[13]

2. Digital forensics

Digital forensics can be used by the police to crack and uncover the data saved on a certain digital device, such as mobile phones and computers, used by the criminal. Extracting data can be helpful for the investigators as it allows them to go a step further than mere physical investigation. 

3. Data Mining

The concept of data mining is largely used by the companies in order to extract certain type of data from a large set of data in order to streamline their search for audiences/customer’s tastes and trends. These companies can join hands with police or NGOs in combating the online abuse and help locate the online content. This can ease the load on just the police and investigators and also will help cover lot more digital ground. In the United States, one such company worked with an organization to locate abducted children and was able to pull up data from various resources and plotted the information on a map.[14]

4. Undercover online investigations

Online undercover investigations should be made a part of the overall investigation system. This could involve law enforcement officers pretending to be children, digitally accessing chat rooms, setting up fake websites to view content on child sexual abuse, or joining child sexual abuse information forums purporting to be a recipient of child sexual abuse content. Doing this, the agents must ensure to have programs and soft wares that would conceal their location and identity.

5. Censorships / watchdog apps and extensions

The law enforcement agencies can collaborate with the internet service providers, to have the warning mechanisms in place whenever the child abuse content is requested to be viewed from the search engines that enabling the dark web. The mechanisms should also have programs that would detect the soft wares and search engines used to access the dark web. This way, the explicit content can not only be blocked but also help in catching the perpetrators. “The European Commission has developed a blocking mechanism for ISPs called the Child Sexual Abuse Anti-Distribution Filter, which is currently used by ISPs in Denmark, Finland, Italy, Malta, Norway and Sweden.” [15]

6. Maintaining a database of offenders accessible to other departments

A portal can be made which can be accessible to all law enforcement agencies and police departments across the country as well as in other countries, which would keep a thorough record of the offenders and their linked organizations. This will help combating the issue on a larger scale.

7. Improved security softwares

User-friendly softwares should be made available and mandatory to be installed in computers and cell-phones that would instantly alert the parents, police or investigators if any perpetrator tries to contact the child and expose him/her to the online explicit content.

          In conclusion, online child abuse, although a novel way of committing criminal abuse against children, has far more harmful repercussions on young individuals. It allows for perpetrators to practice abusive acts behind their computer screens, all the while maintaining anonymity. Although with the recent enactment of multiple pieces of legislation, and use of new technological tools, Pakistan seems to have a long way to go in its efforts to curb online child abuse. Borrowing from effective practices of other jurisdictions, our government must recognize that these newly emerging methods of committing crimes can only be tackled by a well-oiled collaboration of law makers, enforcement agencies, and cutting edge technology.