Children sexually abused online while government and corps do little

Children still sexually abused online as telecommunications corporations ignore the problem  since 2009  when the anti-child pornography law  RA 9775 was passed. Nothing much happened since this press release in October 2014.

Govt eyes Internet filtering to stop online child abuse
Published October 29, 2014 4:29pm

A filtering system meant to stop children’s access to undesirable content on the Internet will soon be put in place through a joint effort by the government and telecommunication companies, according to Justice Assistant Secretary Geronimo Sy, head of the DOJ Office of Cybercrime, on Wednesday.

“We are coming up with a filtering software because [with] the volume [of Internet data], it cannot be humanly possible to do it. It should be something automated,” Sy told reporters on the sidelines of a public-private dialogue on online child abuse in Makati.

Sy said the government had also asked telecommunications companies to be more accountable in ensuring that content on online child abuse, which he said was “wrong and criminal in nature,” did not get through their systems.

“Telcos can do it if they want to,” he said.

Justice Secretary Leila De Lima said children were “very, very vulnerable” to online child abuse, especially in light of the discovery by government investigators that the victims’ parents, close relatives, and neighbors were the ones actually “exploiting” them to be sexually abused on the Internet “for commercial purposes, which is really condemnable.”

The DOJ and the Convergence of Councils and Committees for Child Protection have earlier gathered stakeholders for the first National Conference on Protecting Children in the Cyber Age, which led to the signing of the Declaration of Commitment and Plan of Action, De Lima said.

Sy said the government has been working with the Child Pornography Council on the initiative, and that the filtering techonology is already available and would go live in the next “six to 12 months.”

In a speech during the dialogue, De Lima said the filtering system could help balance the rights of children against online sexual abuse and the rights of online users to privacy.

De Lima said child abuse on the Internet has been “spreading at an alarming rate,” citing a 2005 report from the European Union Commission showing that about one million images of sexually abused children are posted online every year.

Around 70 percent of the images involved children 10 years old and below, she added.

In the Philippines, the DOJ Cybercrime Office is already indexing cases of child abuse, with a report on the matter coming out in 2015, according to Sy.

“The DOJ will start an annual cybercrime report detailing the statistics, regular modus operandi, who to run to, who to turn to, but at the same time, also advocating self-regulation,” he added. —Mark Merueñas/KBK/NB, GMA News