Microsoft programme tracks internet paedophiles

Microsoft has launched a cyber-tracking system to help Scotland Yard and police forces all over the world hunt down internet child porn traffickers.

The Child Exploitation Tracking System (CETS), launched yesterday, was set up after a personal plea from a Toronto detective to the software giant’s founder, Bill Gates.

It was developed by Microsoft Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Toronto Police Service, with the help of world law enforcement experts, including officers from the US Department of Homeland Security, Scotland Yard and Interpol.

In what Microsoft describes as the first software designed specifically to capture pornographers who prey on children and sell their images via the internet, the system will allow police departments worldwide to share and track previously unlinked information on investigations and suspects.

“Sharing and exchanging information is one of the most powerful tools law enforcement agencies possess to battle against online child exploitation,” said David Hemler, president of Microsoft Canada.

He said internet pornographers were computer savvy, so the program would put law enforcement officials “on the same level as the bad guys”.

The FBI has seen a 2,000% increase in the number of child pornography images on the internet since 1996 and Canadian police estimate that more than 100,000 websites contain images of child sexual abuse. Experts say at least 95% of victims are abused by someone they know, either a relative or neighbour.

“Criminals are using the internet at an unprecedented rate to exploit the most vulnerable of our society – our children,” said Canadian minister of public safety Anne McLellan.

Hemler said Microsoft had committed €3.2m towards the program and said the software would be available to any police force, and at no cost.

CETS is a security-enhanced database that uses open standards to allow computer systems from different countries and with different technologies to communicate with one another, according to Microsoft.

John Clark, deputy assistant secretary of immigration and customs enforcement at the US Department of Homeland Security, said his department shared experience on its methods of tracking criminals.

“We were lending our expertise because we have established tracking systems,” said Clark, who attended the launch. “This is the first specifically dedicated to child protection.”

The initiative was the result of an email from Det Sgt Paul Gillespie, a member of the Toronto Police Service sex crimes unit in January 2003 asking Gates for help in battling child pornography. The billionaire, known for his philanthropy in the area of Aids research and education, called on Microsoft Canada to develop a software program that would help police.

Gillespie said several suspected pornographers had already been arrested from testing of the new system. One man was arrested in Toronto last week, after a tip plugged into CETS linked with two previous reports on the suspect.

“When we pulled up all three, it gave us the ability to physically identify somebody and grounds for an arrest warrant,” Gillespie said. “That person was investigated and arrested, and in fact found to be involved in abusing a child.”

Gillespie said another suspect was arrested several months ago, after information from the FBI, Scotland Yard and Homeland Security, investigating child pornography chatrooms and credit card purchases of the images, were programmed into the system.

“It identified a link between one of those people on the credit card list with one very small consistency in this chatroom in the UK,” Gillespie said. “Both pieces of the puzzles were put together and out of that we were able to identify somebody; an abuser of a young child taking pictures with his own camera.”