A safeguarding alert was sent to parents with children at a local school on May 12
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A Belfast school has issued a warning that pupils at local schools are being “targeted by criminal gangs” through social media.
The alert, sent to parents of children at a Belfast grammar school on Tuesday, May 12, said individuals are posing as teenage girls on apps including Telegram and TikTok, to trick others to send them images. It adds this is for the “intention of extorting for money or additional pictures.”
The message to parents added that such images can be “altered with AI and used as an additional blackmail” too. Parents and guardians have been encouraged to discuss the importance of responsible online behaviour with children.
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The safeguarding alert sent to parents said: “We have been made aware that pupils in local schools are being targeted by criminal gangs via social media apps including Telegram and TikTok.
“Individuals are posing as teenage girls in order to trick others into sending images, with the intention of extorting for money or additional pictures.
“Such pictures can be altered using AI and used as an additional blackmail tool. Please discuss the importance of responsible online behaviour and that they can report any contact of concern to CEOP via the alert icon on their SIMS c2k homepage, or via www.ceop.police.uk, to Childline, or to the PSNI.”
PSNI Detective Superintendent Piper said: “We have specialist detectives within the Child Internet Protection Team who are dedicated to robustly investigating those who contribute to the cycle of child abuse and bringing those responsible before the courts.
“We use specialist technology to examine digital devices and trace any digital interaction right back to the person responsible making it difficult for offenders to hide evidence from us.
“If a person is downloading, viewing or making indecent images of children, you are leaving a digital footprint and we are actively looking for you. I would encourage anyone with concerns or information to get in contact us on 101 or 999 in an emergency.”
A PSNI spokesperson added that a number of resources are available for support: A young person can also use the Report Remove service provided by Childline to help young people under 18 in the UK to confidentially report sexual images and videos of themselves and remove them from the internet.
Another good resource is https://www.iwf.org.uk/ Internet watch foundation. For more information and advice on how to keep your children safe online visit https://www.psni.police.uk/staysafeonline or https://onlinesafetyhub.safeguardingni.org/. Additional information is also available from the NSPCC and Safer Schools NI
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