Online Gaming Servers Infiltrated By Pedophiles Who Pretend To Be Children; Sanctions Even For Erring Developers Pushed

Pedophiles have infiltrated online gaming servers in mobile and desktop applications amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic that has forced children to stay home and make use of digital means for leisure.

The problem has prompted calls to review existing laws and reexamine sanctions against developers who have become remiss in protecting their users, especially minors.

According to Jay Sto. Domingo, a cloud architect for IBM, sexual predators masquerade as children to reach their targets online.

A cloud is a network of remote servers hosted on the internet and used to store, manage and process data in place of local servers or personal computers.

“We don’t know what they look like. You’d just be surprised that one day your kid will ask you if they should give their username and password to someone they’re playing with online,” Sto. Domingo said in a forum on Wednesday, Sept. 9.

Millions of children nationwide have become vulnerable to online sexual exploitation of children or OSEC due to prolonged hours online to keep themselves busy.

While some children are aware enough not to give their personal details, Sto. Domingo warned that online pedophiles could be convincing enough for victims to lose their resolve.

Sto. Domingo said if the predators succeed, it is possible to lock the children out of their accounts or even have their gadgets hacked by simply clicking on a link that might enable pedophiles to control the gadgets’ camera and audio.

“You wouldn’t know if they’re already spying on your children. We can’t be there 24/7, but we have to make them aware,” he said.

He advised gadget users to place the necessary equipment to block cameras as a precautionary measure.

Most governments have temporarily closed schools to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The Philippines has suspended face-to-face classes for the rest of the year due to the risk of COVID transmission.

With children spending their time at home, the United Nations has cited studies showing that social media and video games provide temporary escape from real life and offer valuable social engagement.

This should all the more prompt parents to pay attention to what their children do online, the content the kids encounter, and their life environment and support networks in general, the UN said.

Flora Arellano, president of Civil Society Network for Education Reforms (E-Net), pointed out the need for the government and the private sector to examine virtual establishments and business ventures and to consider sanctions against those who fail to protect their users, especially children.

“It’s important to reexamine the existence of virtual education establishments and business ventures who provide internet technology and review sanctions in their responsibilities. They need to be embedded in these talks,” Arellano said.

The Child Rights Network (CRN) reported that one of three internet users in the Philippines are children, 90 percent of whom can access the internet freely and without supervision.

While gaming platforms are a fairly new addition to the discussions on OSEC, the digital sexual abuse and exploitation of children has been a chronic problem in the country, which remains the world’s largest known source of OSEC due to the English fluency of the population and relatively high internet connectivity.

The Department of Justice reported last May 25 that OSEC cases have surged by 264 percent during the COVID pandemic. The DOJ Office of Cybercrime said the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children recorded a total of 279,166 cases from its Cyberline Trip Report hotline from March 1 to May 24 – a jump from the 76,561 reported during the same period last year.

On May 21, US State Department official John Richmond, who oversees America’s efforts to combat human trafficking, bared that the Philippines has emerged as a global hot spot for OSEC, and coronavirus lockdowns that restrict millions to their homes may be worsening the abuses.

A new study released by the Washington-based International Justice Mission said Philippine showed cases of OSEC have increased sharply in recent years with parents agreeing to have their own children victimized for the money. The private group has helped track down and prosecute offenders in the Philippines.

“The global shutdown with the COVID-19 pandemic seems to only be increasing these phenomena,” Richmond said in an online launch of the study.

Child rights groups have lamented that OSEC has been perpetrated mostly with the participation of the victims’ parents. The drivers of OSEC in the country, apart from English fluency and internet connectivity, are endemic poverty, prevailing social norms, and changes in parenting dynamics due to migration.

Last month, police dismantled the operation of an online sex trafficking network in Surigao del Sur with the arrest of five suspects and the rescue of 15 victims, some of whom were the suspects’ children.

The suspects were reportedly selling child pornographic materials and monetizing live shows.

Last April 22, a 25-year-old woman was arrested in an undisclosed province in Luzon on charges of cybersex trafficking of minors, including her own children. Two weeks before this, police arrested another woman who trafficked her cousin, a minor, from the age of 11 to 13 in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu.

The suspects allegedly livestreamed the sexual abuse of these minors to foreign sex offenders in exchange for money.

On May 26, a regional trial court in Pampanga sentenced an American to life in prison on charges of sexually exploiting Filipino children using webcams to sell videos, photos and livestreams to buyers abroad.

The conviction of David Timothy Deakin is a strong warning to offenders that “they could not hide even if they commit sexual exploitation crimes in cyberspace because law enforcers are collaborating worldwide to catch them,” National Bureau of Investigation official Janet Francisco said.

Desperate calls in expense of children

A recurrent observation made by children’s rights advocates amid the pandemic is how financial constraints brought about by job cuts and other economic burdens have worsened the situation for children.

“This has to do with the situation of the family. Breadwinners were laid off and are now burdened with how to shell out cash for bills and other needs. When this further entrenches them in debt, they are induced into a position with limited options,” Sto. Domingo said.

He noted that when children fall into the care of people who have little consideration for their humanity, they become “a means to an end.”

“They are being used as a tool to hurdle hunger and poverty. I think the government has a lot to do. Children are bearing the brunt of the situation,” Sto. Domingo said.

What has been done?

While lawmakers have expressed alarm due to the feared surge in cybersex trafficking of children in the country amid community quarantine, groups have lamented how these laws were inadequate in addressing these issues.

Nitz Dalde of CRN noted that while there are already several laws that seek to address OSEC, widespread internet use and OSEC cases are unprecedented, and these laws need to be reviewed.

“These laws have many good features, but they did not anticipate that we would arrive in this state of advanced technology. Law enforcement authorities and the justice system are doing everything, but they need legal covers to address these,” Dalde said.

While the Cybercrime Prevention Act, Anti-Child Pornography Act and the Anti-Child Abuse law are the most referenced laws for OSEC cases, these failed to define OSEC as a distinct and separate crime with specific punishments for it, the CRN earlier said.

The group pointed out the lack of an “all-encompassing” law that clearly includes the full range of OSEC activities such as recruitment and online technology, stages of commission, participation in the offense and corresponding penalties.

Other gaps include the lack of clearly imposed obligations on private actors like banks, internet cafés, money remittance centers, credit card companies, hotels, inns and lessors whose services are used by pedophiles.

Although provided by law, internet service providers also sometimes fail to block and filter sites hosting child sexual abuse materials. Even Facebook, one of the most used platforms in child sex abuse materials, said it takes down 99.5 percent of the millions of abusive content monthly, but a few thousand could still slip past its technology.

Latest government data showed that in 2018 alone, at least 600,000 naked and sexualized photos and videos of Filipino children were shared and sold on the internet. Out of these cases, only 27 perpetrators were convicted.

This marks a 1,300 percent increase from the previous year, during which 45,645 OSEC incidents were recorded.

Conviction rates for child sex trafficking in the country rose with the heavy involvement of international law enforcement agencies and police who keep track of their citizens’ transactions, the Philippine National Police (PNP) Women and Children Protection Center earlier said.

PNP records showed that foreigners in the Philippines preying on Filipinos aged 18 and below were mostly from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Australia. There were also a number of Filipino perpetrators.

Niño Lasin of the United Nations Children’s Fund or UNICEF stressed that many factors make eradicating OSEC difficult, but one of the most important remedies is awareness – to keep communities informed and law enforcement on their toes, and to remind policymakers of the importance of protecting children.

“The landscape is digital, it has something we don’t have full control over due to limitations. We need to continue talking about OSEC, share what we know and to support advocacies or clamor,” he said. “This could help the government strengthen prosecution, investigation and adjudication of OSEC cases.”