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A staggering number of 2,330 child pornography contents are daily stored in digital devices as well as in different app-based storage facilities.
According to CID’s Cyber Police Centre, a total of 7,87,810 such contents were found to be stockpiled from the period of December last year to November 3 this year.
The US-based nonprofit organisation – National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) – first alerted the Bangladesh police about the issue by sharing a cybercrime video content.
The video showed a 10-year-old kid being sexually abused at home in Gazipur in 2020.
The child was unable to tell the accident to her family members for which the culprit remained untraceable, but artificial intelligence (AI) detected the incident when the offender filmed the scene and stored in his electronic device.
The Criminal Investigation Department communicated with the victim’s family and requested them to file a case, but the family refused to take support from the law enforcement agency due to fear of social stigma.
Of the total 7,87,810 child pornography contents, Facebook detected 7,75,967, Google 4,807, Instagram 1,647, WhatsApp 1,502, Tiktok 899, Microsoft 163, and others 2,825.
NCMEC keeps surveillance on the US-registered cyberspace including Google, Facebook, Gmail, Instagram, WhatsApp, Microsoft, Apple iPhone, and Intel to detect child pornography, sexual abuse scenes and videos, and inform related countries of the incidents to either prevent or take legal action.
The CID is now working in collaboration with the NCMEC from November 2020.
“Child porn is becoming awful in Bangladesh. Offenders share and store porn items in digital devices,” SM Ashrafuzzaman, special superintendent of CID’s Cyber Investigation and Operation, told The Business Post.
“Tipped off by the NCMEC, a cyber-criminal named Borhan Uddin, alias Tanjim was arrested on November 3 over the Pornography Control Act 2012.”
Tanjim blackmailed local and foreign women as well as children (aged below 18 years) by capturing pornography contents.
The police official revealed that several culprits were arrested over cyber-criminal charges in Bangladesh after receiving allegations from victims while artificial intelligence from support organisations gives an extra advantage for the lawmen.
According to Cyber Crime and Artificial Intelligence experts, trade-based pornography did not begin on a large scale in Bangladesh, but it is available in neighbouring India through internet.
They observed that Bangladeshi offenders usually capture pornography contents for the purpose of blackmail and most families are not able to know that their children are facing sexual abuses, but those who are aware of it refuse to go to lawmen for avoiding social shame.
As the cyberspace is expanding, the cyber criminals targeted the underage girl children during the Covid-19 pandemic when they were shut in home relying on internet.
“Facebook hacking incidents are on the rise while children fall victim to all types of cybercrimes including sexual abuse from home and abroad,” said Hasina Begum, deputy controller (Cyber Crime and Security) of Controller of Certifying Authorities (CCA).
She opined that most children are not able to express the nightmarish experiences to their elders and family members; the family members who could make a guess about the issue shy away from resorting to legal action due to social blemish while law-enforcement apparatus cannot go for action for lack of documents and complaints.
The CCA introduced www.konnakothacca.com to make girls aware of cybercrime and security through training. It also seeks to have complaints from the victims based on which it would launch probe and make forensic reports.
However, the CCA and no other organisations have yet developed artificial intelligence in Bangladesh to detect pornography content in cyberspace.
According to the NCMEC, children aged 13-14 are the largest group of child pornography victims worldwide accounting for 35 per cent while 11-12 years old occupy 22 per cent.
The United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) statistics says approximately 1.8 billion photos are uploaded to the internet every day, of which 720,000 are believed to be abusive images of children.
A Bangladeshi child pornography maker Tipu Kibria was held with his three accomplices on June 10, 2022 by the CID.
Police say Tipu used to send porn video contents to 13 foreigners in Canada, Switzerland, Africa, North America Europe, and the Middle East for business purposes.
Tipu was released recently.
Additional Police Superintendent of Cyber Centre Mahmudul Hasan Talukder told The Business Post though pornography has yet to take the shape of a trade in Bangladesh, there is no way that the issue sholuld be taken lightly.
“We cannot bypass it. Cyber criminals are always on the prowl, and so building awareness is most important at family level,” said the official.
