As with any new technology that comes along, there are always going to be those out there who will attempt to use it for illicit financial gain. Last nights RTE Prime Time featured SEXTORTION, a topic many people may not have been aware of. Sextortion according to Wikipedia “refers to the broad category of sexual exploitation in which abuse of power is the means of coercion, as well as to the category of sexual exploitation in which threatened release of sexual images or information is the means of coercion”. The more appropriate term is Online Sexual Exploitation.

Simply put, this is a method of extortion, by which a perpetrator encourages an innocent victim to create, either explicit images, video or live stream content and share it. On receipt of the content, the perpetrator attempts to blackmail the victim, forcing them to send either substantial quantities of money, or further images.

Due to the very personal and embarrassing nature of the content, the victims will not want to have the content  released online and posted all over the internet. So many are compliant, often paying huge sums of money over, only to still have the content posted or shared on the pages of  their own friends list.

This is a pretty horrific form of extortion. One that for the most part, goes mostly unreported. Victims can be male or female, adult or a child. The perpetrator will attempt to obtain the images in various ways such as through hacking images from a device, or the image may have been shared consensually through sexting. In the case of adults, the perpetrator will seek to extort money.

In the case of children, further extortion of the child through an ever increasing level of more abusive image can be sought. Children could be coerced into a contact meeting where the child is sexually abused. Old devices sold on, which have not been cleared of all data, contained compromising images leave the previous owner vulnerable to this type of crime.

This type of crime is incredibly prevalent at the moment. Due to a lack reporting to parents or the Police, perpetrators could continue to go through a person’s entire social network, looking for further victims. Non-payment will result in the release of the images. Payment can also result in the release of the images. For children exposed to this, the impact can destroy them for the rest of their lives.

Europol released the two videos shown on this post, under the #SAYNO campaign. We would encourage everyone to view them. Studies are showing that education and awareness reduce the possibility of becoming a victim.