64 individuals detained by Ontario Provincial Police over child sex abuse

The police in Ontario have caught 64 people who are accused of hurting children. They have a total of 348 charges against them. The investigations covered the whole province.

The police announced the arrests at a press conference in Scarborough on Wednesday morning. They were sharing more information about a major investigation called Project Aquatic.

The police started the case in February 2024. It involved 129 different investigations from all over Ontario about online sexual abuse material.

Det.-Sgt. Tim Brown said on Wednesday that 34 children were found as part of the investigation. The police said that because of Project Aquatic, 30 more children were kept safe. Brown explained that means taking children out of a dangerous situation where they could be harmed.

The police took more than 600 electronic devices as part of their investigation.

“People of all ages, from teenagers to old people, were arrested,” said Brown. “We find people who break the law in the whole province, from all different backgrounds and ages. ”

The police say that in one instance, a person arranged to meet with undercover investigators because they wanted to meet a child for a sexual reason. The police said another person had about 21 terabytes of data with pictures and videos of children being abused.

Toronto police said to CP24 that 13 people were arrested in the city and together they are facing 69 criminal charges.

Most of the investigation was done when investigators responded to complaints from electronic service providers, Brown said.

“We are working very hard to keep putting pressure on anyone who tries to hurt our children,” Brown said to the media. These dangers are not only found in hidden parts of the internet. Predators follow children.

Signy Arnason, who works at the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, said that Cybertip. ca, the tipline for reporting online child sexual abuse and exploitation in Canada, gets 2,000 to 3,000 tips every month.

“In our work, we have seen more and more adults who are interested in children in a bad way. ” “These online groups share and promote sexually abusive content involving children, and they even give each other advice on how to do it,” she said.

“They make it seem like it’s okay to sexually abuse and use children. ” In these communities, some people are very focused on certain victims, they try to find them and even follow them when they grow up. The dark web and AI generated images make the problem worse.

Arnason said that in Canada, there has been a huge increase in the number of reports about images made by artificial intelligence in recent years.

“That equation has two sides. ” Some people are trying to use technology to make fake images of child sexual abuse. She said it’s a nightmare for the victims to see new abusive images of themselves.

Young people are using AI generators to create nude images of kids at school and think it’s funny. That problem has become very big and now schools all over the country are facing it suddenly. We know it’s very upsetting and harmful to young people especially.

She said that the government needs to do more to handle the situation, like making new rules.

“We know that the police in Canada are overwhelmed and do not have enough resources. ” Many phone lines in different countries. “We are getting a lot of reports about child sexual abuse and online sexual violence towards young people,” she said.

This problem needs many different groups to work together, like police, governments, websites, teachers, parents, and organizations like ours. We all need to work together to fight it. It’s not enough yet.

She said that tech companies need to do more to keep children safe.

We need to protect children online the same way we protect them in real life. “Companies that make technology have too much power and only care about making money, even if it hurts kids. We can’t rely on them to keep kids safe on their own anymore,” she said.

“Stopping people from uploading bad pictures, quickly removing them, and making sure people are trained to do the right thing are all very important in protecting kids from being hurt on the internet. “