 The Conservatives plan to table a bill tomorrow that will hold Internet providers criminally responsible for failing to report online child pornography. (Ernest Doroszuk, Sun Media File Photo Illustration)
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Internet service providers that turn a blind eye to online child pornography could face hefty fines or jail time under new legislation to be tabled this week.
The Conservative government will table a bill in the House of Commons tomorrow that would make it mandatory for Internet providers to report to police incidents of pornographic images or live online sex shows involving minors.
"The bill will strengthen our ability to protect children from sexual predators," a senior government official told Sun Media. "It will help police rescue these young victims and help prosecute the criminals responsible."
HAVEN FOR PREDATORS
The Internet has become a haven for child predators and pornographers -- and Canada is now ranked as one of the world's worst offenders. A report from the Canadian Centre for Child Protection/Cybertip.ca released earlier this month shows Canada is among the top five countries when it comes to hosting websites depicting or selling materials involving child sexual abuse.
"Our government thinks that is unacceptable," said the Conservative official.
The growing prevalence of child porn online is due to wider access to the Internet, but also because laws aren't strong enough to address the mushrooming illegal content on servers. While there are no additional police resources specifically attached to this bill, the official did not rule out some at a future date.
"There is nothing in this particular bill, but that's not to say we aren't willing to do more to assist law enforcement," he said.
The official said predators and pornographers seek clever ways to avoid detection, such as changing addresses many times a day through different countries.
NOT CRITICISM
He stressed the bill should not be seen as a criticism of the vast majority of Internet service providers.
"Many of these suppliers voluntarily report child pornography, but many is not all," he said. "The majority of ISPs report child pornography, but the majority is not all."
Steve Sullivan, the federal ombudsman for victims of crime, released a report in June warning online child sexual abuse is growing at an "alarming" rate. He said the number of charges for production and distribution of child porn soared by 800% between 1998 and 2003 and that the number of images of serious child abuse quadrupled between 2003 and 2007.
Sullivan also noted that images were becoming increasingly violent and featuring younger children.
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PORN PROFILE
IMAGES OF CHILD ABUSE
Some highlights of a recent report from Canadian Centre for Child Protection/Cybertip.ca on online child porn websites:
35.9%
Of images depict sexual assaults against the child
64.1%
Of images depict children posed in a sexual way
77.6%
Of webpages had at least one image of a child younger than 8 -- many with infants or toddlers
68.5%
Of images depicted extreme sexual assaults against kids younger than 8
83%
Of images were of girls
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POOR HOSTS
WERE CHILD PORN WEBSITES LOCATE
Top 5 countries hosting websites with child sexual abuse images (of 12,696 website incidents)
U.S. 49.2%
Russia 20.4%
Canada 9%
Japan 4.3%
S. Korea 3.6%
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SEX FOR SALE
WHO IS SELLING CHILD PORN
Top 5 countries selling material on child sexual abuse websites (800 commercial websites)
U.S. 65.6%
Canada 8.7%
Russia 5.6%
Netherlands 2.9%
Germany 1.8%
Source: Canadian Centre for Child Protection/Cybertip.ca Report, November 2009
