Scale of internet child pornography use wider than thought

GARDAÍ are unearthing a level of internet child pornography use that is thought to be on a scale greater than that exposed by Operation Amethyst.

Operation Amethyst, conducted in May 2002, involved searches on 110 homes and businesses in Ireland following information provided by the FBI in the US. The present operation, codenamed Operation Bonfire, is investigating more than 300 Irish people.

They are suspected of having viewed or downloaded internet child pornography following an international investigation.

The United Nations police co-ordinating body, Interpol, has provided gardaí with at least 300 addresses of computers in Ireland which had accessed a child pornography website.

Gardaí were tight-lipped yesterday about Operation Bonfire, which they said was still ongoing.

Senior officers have expressed concern that the operation has been publicised. Details of it appeared in the Sunday Tribune.

The Garda Press Office declined to comment on the matter, but confirmed its existence. A spokeswoman said: “As this is an ongoing investigation it would be inappropriate to comment.”

The Irish Examiner understands that gardaí believe Operation Bonfire will be more extensive than Operation Amethyst.

The Examiner has confirmed that more than 300 Irish people are involved in the investigation and that an unknown number of raids have been carried out.

The investigation began after Interpol experts were able to track computers that had logged on to a child pornography website located in the Balkans.

They found that more than 100,000 computers from 170 countries had logged on to the site.

Interpol supplied gardaí with the unique IP address of more than 300 computers. An IP address is a form of identification unique to each computer.

It is understood that an unknown percentage of these people may have simply viewed the website, but did not download any material from it.

While it is a criminal offence to download child pornography, it is not an offence to view it, as computer users could have accidentally come across the website.

Operation Bonfire, as with Operation Amethyst before it, is being conducted by the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Unit, which is attached to the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Computers, laptops and disks seized in the raids are in the process of being analysed by the computer crime unit.