Public Safety Canada Webinar Series 2024
Combatting Online Child Sexual Exploitation

Hosted by Public Safety Canada, 2024

Public Safety Canada (PS) leads the National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet (National Strategy), launched in 2004, and works in collaboration with Justice Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P).

As part of its efforts under the National Strategy, in 2023-2024, PS hosted a two-part webinar series on combatting online child sexual exploitation (OCSE). The objectives of these webinars are to provide updates on what is being done within federal, provincial/territorial jurisdictions, civil society and the private sector to advance efforts in combatting OCSE; share information on best practices and lessons learned; as well as facilitate discussions around gaps, the discuss the current framework the and challenges related to this crime.

A total of 617 participants attended this two-part webinar series. Participants included a cross-disciplinary audience of partners and stakeholders working on combatting OCSE including Canadian law enforcement, child-serving organizations, victim services and other non-governmental organizations, the education sector, and federal, provincial, territorial, and local governments.

To learn more about the themes discussed in the webinar, please consult the resources.

Based on post-webinar feedback and survey results, the webinars were well received and deeply impactful. The Government of Canada takes the issue of OCSE very seriously and is committed to working with provinces/territories, other levels of government, non-governmental organizations, digital industry and other domestic and international partners in combatting the complex crime of OCSE.

Key Themes from the Webinar Series

Public Safety Canada convened key stakeholders to explore the crime of online child sexual exploitation (OCSE) at the following webinars:

Webinar 1: Emerging Technological Trends: The Impacts of Generative AI and Deepfakes on Online Child Sexual Exploitation on November 28, 2023
Webinar 2: Children's Voices: The Empowerment and Inclusion of Children in the Response to Online Child Sexual Exploitation on February 7, 2024

Three key themes emerged across the series:

OCSE is a complex crime that is facilitated by new technologies.
- New technologies allow for child sexual abuse material to be produced, distributed and consumed at a rapid pace.
- The machine learning capabilities of new technologies like Generative AI make material more believable and much simpler to produce, distribute and consume.
- The interplay of believability and efficiency makes it so that perpetrators can continue to profit from material production, distribution and consumption.
To strengthen the response to OCSE, the inclusion and empowerment of children and youth is essential.
- Adults have perceived notions, rooted in power dynamics, that prevent children and youth from meaningfully engaging in addressing OCSE.
- In order to mitigate the risk of harm, children and youth need to be engaged in a way that is appropriate, inclusive and reciprocal. Children and youth should be treated as agents in shaping their own online experiences.
- If children and youth are engaged, responses will resonate more, will be grounded in their realities and will ultimately be more supportive and effective.
The path forward for addressing OCSE involves child-led and youth-led strategies that feature collaboration with other stakeholders.
- Children and youth should be at the centre of designing, delivering and evaluating programs related to online safety.
- Other stakeholders, such as frontline services and technology providers, have a role to play in supporting victims and survivors and building safeguards into online platforms.
- Governments have a responsibility to legislate and continue to create provisions against OCSE.

Webinar 1: Emerging Technological Trends: The Impacts of Generative AI and Deepfakes on Online Child Sexual Exploitation

November 28, 2023

Discussion Highlights

Producing and distributing technology-facilitated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is more accessible than ever before due to the features of online platforms like useable interfaces and fine tuning tools.
Technology-facilitated CSAM has become realistic and believable due to the machine learning capabilities of technologies like Generative AI. These capabilities, and the useability of technologies, open opportunities for perpetrators to profit from producing and distributing material.
The impacts of technology-facilitated CSAM are gendered, meaning that girls and women are disproportionately targeted and harmed when material features their faces and bodies without their consent. They tend not to report or ask for support because of widespread shame and blame.
It is necessary to combat this emerging crime from various angles: frontline services can respond to the needs of victims and survivors, technology providers can remove material and build safeguards into platforms and experts can educate stakeholders on preventing and detecting material production and distribution.
Governments have a responsibility to legislate and continue to create provisions for this crime.

Presentation 1: Understanding the Technology behind Deepfakes for Image-Based Sexual Abuse

Chidera Okolie, UEA Award Fellow, University of East Anglia

Deepfakes are images or videos that have been convincingly altered using artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to misrepresent a person and their behaviours. While AI is a tool that can create significant political and economic opportunities, it can also be manipulated to serve nefarious purposes like facilitating Image-Based Sexual Abuse (IBSA) through the production of pornographic deepfakes.
Pornographic deepfakes perpetuate IBSA by using AI to replace the faces or bodies of individuals engaging in explicit acts with those of unsuspecting victims.
The result is that victims appear as though they are engaging in the acts themselves, which can amount to the creation, display and distribution of sexual images without their consent.
The machine learning embedded in AI, including generative models, is used to collect images and videos featuring victims, deconstruct the subtle features of their faces and bodies and manipulate those original features to generate new pornographic media. This process occurs in a streamlined manner due to fully integrated applications that collect data and generate deepfakes in a short amount of time.

Presentation 2: The Psychosocial Impacts of Gen AI and Deepfakes

Vasileia Karasavva, PhD Candidate in Clinical Psychology, University of British Columbia

While sometimes deemed amusing or entertaining, deepfakes can be dangerous due to their believability, accessibility and commodification. The process for producing deepfakes has been expedited with the help of accessible code and coders. A flourishing market for deepfakes allows money to be made through deepfake creating apps, deepfake hosting websites and actual deepfake creation itself.
Due to their believability, accessibility and commodification, deepfakes may be used to perpetrate technology-facilitated sexual violence. The majority of deepfake videos online are pornographic and feature the faces and bodies of girls and women without their consent.
Having material be produced and distributed at their expense has several negative impacts on girls and women, impacts that extend from online realms into everyday life: anxiety, depression and, sometimes, post-traumatic stress disorder; social isolation from societal stigma and shame surrounding IBSA; initial abuse serving as a predictor of further violence; and self-harm and suicidal thoughts, feelings or intentions.
These harms are exacerbated by the rampant victim blaming in society and foster a vicious cycle where victims are less likely to disclose their experiences of IBSA. Their reluctance to disclose makes them also less likely to reach out for help to friends, family members, school officials or support services. They fear not being believed or having to endure daunting, retraumatizing investigation and reporting processes.

Presentation 3: How AI is Being Abused to Create Child Sexual Abuse Imagery

Dan Sexton, Chief Technology Officer, Internet Watch Foundation

A report commissioned by the Internet Watch Foundation revealed that, in a one-month period from September to October 2023, a total of 20,254 AI-generated images were posted to one dark web CSAM forum. Nearly three thousand of these images were deemed criminal in the United Kingdom.
Text-to-image AI CSAM can be created using either open or closed source software, with the former being available to anyone and lacking adequate safeguards for abuse prevention. Both models function by using the positive and negative prompts fed to them to generate images, including CSAM. The generative technology embedded in them is trained on huge datasets of real imagery, where perpetrators start the image production process by downloading readily available content to their hard drives.
Fine tuned models then work in tandem with larger foundation models, particularly older versions that have not removed pornographic content, to refine the images produced. These smaller models train the larger ones on datasets containing specific images or criteria for images, including refining content that could feature victims of CSAM. The images that are generated can be further manipulated using editing software that similarly sees few barriers to access and use.
Amidst this troubling process, positive steps forward include closing software loopholes, building safeguards into online platforms, instituting laws to regulate CSAM production and distribution and fostering collaboration among stakeholders on CSAM detection and prevention.

Presentation 4: Deepfakes and the Sexual Exploitation of Children: Observed Facts on and Emerging Trends

Charles-Henri Jenniss, Investigating Sergeant, Technological Division of Sûreté du Québec

Sergeant Charles-Henri Jenniss described a recent case involving the distribution of child pornography over peer-to-peer software, discovered while executing a search warrant in the province of Québec. After opening the case, 12 terabytes of child pornography containing deepfakes were found, these were highly organized by the identities of the victims.
Once the material was detected, analysts were tasked with establishing the production of CSAM. The first step was locating and analyzing the software used by the suspect to produce deepfakes: DeepFace Lab. Sergeant Jenniss commented on the accessibility and sophistication of this software given that it is free, available online and supports high quality formats.
Sergeant Jenniss explained that the suspect relied on source and destination material to train the AI model in DeepFace Lab and noticed that this model improved the quality of the material as it worked over time. He revealed how, after the initial production and distribution of CSAM, the cycle continued with the further possession and dissemination of CSAM and the possibility of deepfake production for greater CSAM.
This case demonstrates that challenges abound for policing organizations in the mass production of CSAM. Existing detection tools can be effective, but technological advancements like digital signatures make it easy for perpetrators to by-pass them. Other challenges lie in finding time and expertise to analyze artificial material production and the introduction of other criminal applications for AI technologies.

Webinar 2: Children's Voices: The Empowerment and Inclusion of Children in the Response to Online Child Sexual Exploitation

February 7, 2024

Discussion Highlights

Children and youth have an important role to play in helping to understand and respond to the crime of online child sexual exploitation.
Preconceived notions and broader power dynamics prevent adults from seeing children and youth as agents in shaping their own online experiences.
Children and youth should be engaged in a way that is appropriate, inclusive and reciprocal in order to mitigate the risk of harm or over-exposure.
Children and youth can contribute to every stage of program development, including defining the problem, identifying the solution and ensuring that a diversity of perspectives and experiences are represented.
The path forward sees children and youth’s engagement as a necessary component in the fight against child sexual exploitation. The future involves child and youth-led strategies that leverage digital tools, anticipate changes in technology and promote collaboration across stakeholders.

For this webinar, PS convened experts working in the field of OCSE for a fireside chat and question period on the role and contributions that children and youth can make to preventing and combatting this crime.

PS thanks the following experts for their participation, many of whom rely entirely on the expertise of children and youth in the work that their organizations undertake:

Cheryl Perera and two youth representatives from OneChild
Suzie Dunn and Christopher Dietzel from Digitally Informed Youth - Digital Safety
Matthew Johnson from MediaSmarts
Francisco Montoro from the International Bureau for Children’s Rights
Andrew Hachey from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Jessica Peters from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Shailey Hingorani from We Protect was invited to set the scene using We Protect’s Global Threat Assessment from 2023 titled “Assessing the Scale and Scope of Child Sexual Abuse Online”. Shailey expressed the importance of including and empowering children and youth as indispensable actors in promoting their own safety on the internet. She framed their engagement as a human right and emphasized that taking child and youth-centred approaches will diminish their marginalization, enhance understandings of OCSE and address gaps in responses to OCSE.

The scene-setting was followed by a fireside chat and question period moderated by PS where representatives from the various organizations described their ongoing work with children and youth. They were then invited to explore several themes related to children and youth’s empowerment and inclusion, with a special segment dedicated to hearing the perspectives and experiences of youth representatives.

A summary of the discussion across the themes is outlined below.

Preconceived notions surrounding engaging children and youth

The unequal power dynamic between adults and children and youth is the root cause of OCSE. This dynamic leads to preconceived notions that adults may have about children and youth and their ability to engage in addressing OCSE.

Adults might be hesitant to engage children and youth for a variety of reasons, including:

The fear that children and youth’s innocence will be tarnished;
The fear that children and youth will be manipulated or tokenized;
The fear that children and youth at risk will be further victimized; or
The fear that they will lose power and control in decision-making.

While some of these fears reflect real risks that might impact children and youth’s safety and wellness, there are several measures that can be taken to mitigate them and ensure that children and youth’s engagement happens in a safe and inclusive way.

Success factors that support children and youth’s engagement

Successfully engaging children and youth does not happen by accident. It is the product of intentional program design, implementation and evaluation.

The following strategies and tools can help to mitigate the preconceived notions and associated fears that adults level against children and youth’s engagement:

Approach children and youth’s engagement through the lens of power-sharing and intergenerational partnership, which could include involving them in problem definition and decision-making processes;
Describe different opportunities for engagement to donors, parents or other actors as a means of managing expectations without diminishing children and youth’s participation;
Look beyond the children and youth that might typically engage and invite other children and youth that may be reluctant or may face barriers with engaging;
Ensure that safeguards are put in place to protect children and youth, such as guaranteeing anonymity, offering trauma support or removing parental influence;
Foster welcoming, comfortable spaces by meeting children and youth where they are at, giving them options for participation and letting them know that they will not get in trouble by participating;
Take advantage of creative ways to participate like providing toys, games, worksheets or arts-based materials;
Affirm to children and youth that their perspectives and experiences matter and that they are the experts;
Explain and model consent and check in with children and youth on a regular basis; and
Design programs to be age appropriate and culturally adaptive.

The principle underlying these strategies and tools is that engaging children and youth needs to involve fostering strong relationships. Their engagement should not be transactional or extractive, meaning that children and youth’s participation should contribute to their wellness and success. Some of the tangible ways that children and youth can benefit from their engagement include offering compensation, certificates of appreciation, opportunities for skill building or opportunities for leading programs in the future.

Youth perspectives on best practices for empowerment and inclusion

Children and youth see the online world as a “third space” that exists between home and school. The assumption made by parents that being online is automatically harmful sets a negative tone for engaging with children and youth, especially if parents are not familiar with the slang or language being used in online interactions. This point does not ignore the fact that children and youth face new and frightening challenges online that parents may have never encountered.

Amidst the generational gap that persists, parents can support children and youth by taking an approach not based in fear and considering the benefits of them spending time online. These benefits could include the opportunity for expression, social connection and exploring educational resources. If parents understand digital interactions in this nuanced way, they have a better chance of leading more caring and productive conversations on online safety with children and youth.

In addition to nuancing their understanding of digital interactions, parents should also consider supporting comprehensive sexual education and foster open communication about healthy relationships with children and youth. Introducing these topics without fear will help children and youth to practice consent and navigate power dynamics, which will ultimately allow them to better communicate around the dangers that they might face online.

When it comes to education for children and youth, campaigns can be made stronger if they communicate authentically, account for shorter attention spans, leverage the platforms that children and youth already frequent and deal with the complexity that children and youth are equipped to handle. Children and youth should be included in creating campaigns, as it is very obvious when campaigns have been developed without them!

The path forward for empowerment and inclusion

The path forward sees children and youth’s empowerment and inclusion as a requirement and as a human right. The future is child- and youth-led, meaning that children and youth are engaged in designing, implementing and evaluating programs and policies that affect their lives.

Children and youth have never been a monolith, so the path forward for their engagement must represent and invite in a diversity of perspectives and experiences. Programs and policies need to make space for this diversity and need to have the funding and capacity supports in place to activate them in a meaningful way.

Digital platforms have a role to play in the path forward. Changes in technology need to be considered for the future. Leaders of this work need to remain humbled and be prepared to ask questions as a means of adapting to the challenges that may appear and making the most of new avenues that may emerge.

Finally, the path forward will not proceed in silos. More direct collaboration is needed between children and youth and government, academia and non-profit organizations. Government engagement with digital platforms, along with legislative frameworks, will further support the safety of children and youth online.

Resources