How to protect your kids from being exploited by internet strangers
‘The more we live online, the more these kind of things are going to happen,’ says Alberta police officer
RCMP say the former Alberta Party candidate charged with sexual assault and luring a 14-year-old girl, met the child through a cell phone app.
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"So, they initially started a conversation on a social media application and it basically expanded from there. They set up a meet, they met in real life, an alleged sexual assault occurred and then the child disclosed to her parents and then to the police," said Staff Sgt. John Guigon.
"The more we live online, the more these kind of things are going to happen."
The officer, who heads the Internet Child Exploitation unit with Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams (ALERT), said the incident highlights why parents need to have "tough conversations" with their children about internet strangers.
"They're trying to fit in, they're trying to belong, they're trying to develop relationships. But they don't have the mental capacity or the social capacity to realize that there are bad people out there," Guigon told the Calgary Eyeopener on Thursday.
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Do you know what apps your kids use?
Along with communicating the risks to their kids around engaging with online predators, Guigon said parents should also know:
- what apps they're using
- which devices they've downloaded those apps to
- their usernames and passwords
"I'm certainly not advocating, you know, inhibiting a child's privacy or right to privacy. But parents need to know who they're talking to and what they're saying," said Guigon.
With files from the Calgary Eyeopener