Your kids are playing in a perverts’ playground

The nation’s top cyber cop has called time on Aussie parents who consistently fail to monitor what their children are doing online.

PARENTS have been told to “toughen up’’ and control kids’ time online, after Australia’s top cyber-cop warned that the internet has become a perverts’ playground.

Detective Inspector Jon Rouse, who runs the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation for the Federal Police, as well as Task Force Argos for Queensland Police, said parents must monitor children’s internet use and demand passwords for apps and devices to keep them safe.

“You are responsible for raising your child safely, it’s your fundamental role as a parent,’’ he told The Sunday Mail in an exclusive interview yesterday.

“If you think technology isn’t a potential threat to your child’s safe passage through life, you are kidding yourself.

“Predators set up fake accounts pretending to be kids – you don’t know who they’re talking to.’’

The Queensland Family and Child Commission will today launch an online advertising blitz warning parents and kids about the “traps’’ set by pedophiles online.

Commission boss Cheryl Vardon urged parents to set rigid rules for their kids’ online activities.

“Toughen up, parents,’’ Ms Vardon told The Sunday Mail yesterday.

“Please don’t buckle, it’s too important. It’s not enough to have them safe at home – know what they’re looking at because they have access to the world through their devices. Parents need to make it a priority even though it’s really hard and you’ll get pushback.’’

Det Insp Rouse said communication apps had given child sex predators “free reign to access and harm children’’.

He warned of a sick new trend for child abusers to trick children into sending photographs.

The predators then threaten to tell the children’s parents, or post the images online, to blackmail them into posing naked or self-harm while they are videoed – often with their parents in the next room.

“In many of the videos that are clearly self-produced, the filming is done in either the child’s bedroom or bathroom,’’ he said.

“I’m not used to seeing children do these kinds of things to themselves.’’

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has warned that kids as young as six are being “coerced’’ into producing sexual material by depraved internet predators who scare them into performing sex acts for the camera.

Detective Inspector Rouse urged parents to check their kids are not following or being followed on social media by anyone they do not know in person.

He said parents should check the esafety.gov.au website for online safety tips, and to apply to have explicit images or cyber-bullying removed from the internet.

“Everyone wants to be an Insta-hero so they set up profiles, take lots and lots of photos of themselves, accept friend requests and follow everyone,’’ he said. “Child sex offenders will send them messages, ‘you’re cute’, ‘you’re really pretty’ – they tell them everything they want to hear.

“A lot of kids don’t think twice about sending photos, however once it gets used against them to solicit more material they don’t know what to do.

“They’re scared, they don’t want to be in trouble with mum and dad and they don’t know where to go for help, so they comply.’’

Det Insp Rouse, who was named Queensland’s Australian of the Year after an 18-year career chasing cyber sex criminals, also questioned Education Queensland’s refusal to ban phones in schools.

“I don’t understand the need for children to access personal mobile devices during school hours,’’ he said.

Victoria, NSW and Western Australia have banned mobile phone use during school hours but Queensland lets principals set their own school rules.

Det Insp Rouse called on families to spend less time online.

“Society now commonly has both parents working, with less time for their kids, so they are turning to mobile devices and online gaming for attention, entertainment and information – the things that in some cases, they’re not getting at home,’’ he said.

“You’ll see five members of a family in a restaurant and they’re all on their phones at the same time.

Try walking down the street without people walking into you on their phones – it’s like a zombie army.’’

Det Insp Rouse said parents should “demand the passwords to phones and devices’’.

“You should be able to unlock your child’s phone, review the apps they are using and have your child talk to you about each person they have friended and how they came to know them,’’ he said.

“Law enforcement agencies can’t do this on their own … we need parents, carers, guardians to understand the technology.’’

Det Insp Rouse said too many children are learning about sex from online pornography.

“A lot of the porn industry’s material depicts brutal humiliation and horrendous treatment of women,’’ he said.

“Exposure at such a young age has the potential to normalise their view of what sex is. This is an enormous social issue.’’

Queensland Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath yesterday warned that one in four children is being contacted by a stranger online.