We need a new kind of web privacy - Online child abuse

BEING kidnapped at gunpoint is far more dramatic and terrifying than being kidnapped by malign forces on social media but the nicety of that differentiation will offer little enough comfort to the parents of London schoolgirls Shamima Begum, Amira Abase, both 15, and Kadiza Sultana, 16, who have, it is reasonably believed, reached the IS-controlled Syrian town of Tal Abyad with the intention of joining the terrorist organisation. What their future holds can only be a matter of the gravest speculation.

That distinction — kidnapped at gunpoint or via chatroom — will not offer any great comfort to the millions of families right across Europe with children potentially as vulnerable, as gullible or as blind as the three teenagers from Bethnal Green Academy in east London. And, tragically, terrorist organisations are not the only online predators who represent a real and increasing threat to our children.

The EU’s police agency Europol warned yesterday that images of children innocently uploaded to social networking sites are being hijacked and sometimes manipulated to be sold to individuals with a sexual interest in children.