While Airdrie's local RCMP school liaison officers are educating youth about the legal implications of sexting, investigators from The Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) are warning about sextortion.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Sextortion is a serious crime that occurs when someone threatens to distribute your private and sensitive material if you don't provide them images of a sexual nature, sexual favours, or money." 
  
And according to the Criminal Code of Canada, luring is an offence, "under section 172.1 of the Criminal Code. It prohibits the use of a computer or other forms of telecommunication to communicate with an underage person for the purpose of facilitating the commission of one of the listed sexual offences." 
  
Sergeant Randy Poon with the Southern Alberta ICE explained that sexting, sextortion and luring can sometimes be intertwined. 
  
"Statistics that we've seen over the last two years show an increase in child pornography images that are being sent out," Poon said. "There is also an increase in the luring aspect where the suspects are going after children between the ages of 10 to 15/17. That's simply because of the explosion of social media." 
  
Poon observed that while youth consume social media without a doubt, so do predators and that luring cases aren't always suspects that are strangers to youth. 
  
"I have seen numerous occurrences of extortion going on between kids, these are the ones where your local friends are sending [sexts] out to other friends, which is again, highly illegal," he said. 
  
Poon also underlined that while youth and teens may be sending sexts over social media, the images may end up in many other places. 
  
"The dark web is what you don't see on Google, what you don't see on Snapchat, what you don't see on Twitter," Poon said. "It's used by these people because they know that it's very anonymous and they know it's very difficult to track them." 
  
Previously, Discover Airdrie had spoken to Airdrie RCMP Constable Gabrielle Spencer who is a school liaison officer in the city. She made specific mention of the issue that once a sexual image is sent out, it is nearly impossible to control where the image ends up, who shares it and how it is shared.  
 
 

be far-reaching and long-lasting.  

  
"We're not oblivious, [sexting] is going to happen," Constable Spencer said. "We just need youth to be educated and know what some of the consequences are." 
  
Depending on the offence, a person who has either made, distributed, or accessed child pornography can face jail time from six months up to 14 years and may be placed on the Sex Offender Registry. Registered sex offenders may apply to the courts for a termination order no earlier than five years after a 10-year order has been issued.  
  
  
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