Kartlegging
ONLINE SEXUAL EXPLOITATION OF CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE
Norway is one of the most digitalised countries in the world, and social media have become an integrated feature in the lives of many Norwegians, including children and young people. The current generation of young people are growing up in a world that is, in many ways, fundamentally different from the world in which their parents grew up, in particular as regards communication and the new information sharing culture. This digitalised world also contains threats, in real life and online, which children and young people encounter daily. The threat actors may be both people they know and strangers. Some of them are adults who use the internet and other digital platforms to make contact with children and young people they then attempt to exploit sexually using brutal and ruthless methods. Others are profit -motivated and organised actors based abroad. However, even people close to them, such as a girlfriend or boyfriend, can cause irreparable harm by distributing very personal images or videos online. The NCIS report Online sexual exploitation of children and young people shines a light on a large and growing area of crime. Downloading and sharing of sexual abuse material, sexual deception and extortion and ordering of live-streamed sexual abuse are some of the phenomena described in the report. The report also points out the consequences that the sharing culture among young people may have for the individual when it involves criminal sharing of sexualised images and videos. In this connection, developing the digital expertise of children and young people is important. The speed of the digital developments makes major demands on the police and the prosecuting authority, and this report presents several issues encountered in the investigation of sexual crimes committed online or using digital tools . These are issues communicated by key lead investigators in the police districts during the preparation of this report. The National Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS) plays a key role in this area as the centre of exper- tise and support agency as regards combating online sexual abuse of children. With the report Online sexual exploitation of children and young people, the NCIS will help raise knowledge about this crime area, an area that will demand increasingly more from the police and other relevant agencies.