PROTECTING INNOCENCE: TECHNOLOGY'S DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD IN THE CSAM BATTLE

In the midst of the digital revolution, we find ourselves at the forefront of a complex challenge: safeguarding our children from online predators. Child sex offenders have seized upon new opportunities to communicate, recruit and exploit young victims - all enabled by digital technologies. The repercussions of their actions are deeply troubling, with incidents of grooming and sextortion showing an alarming and troubling increase.

- KHUSHBU JAIN

Grooming is the process by which predators manipulate minors over time, gradually desensitizing them to inappropriate content, often leads to in-person exploitation.

Sextortion, on the other hand, involves coercing minors into producing explicit material under the threat of exposing compromising information.

Both of these crimes inflict deep emotional scars on victims, leaving them traumatized and vulnerable.

The Digital Saviors: AI and Improved Age Verification In an ironic twist of fate, the very digital technologies that have been leveraged by child sex offenders to perpetrate their heinous crimes are also poised to become our most formidable allies in the ongoing battle to protect our children. This apparent paradox highlights the duality of the digital age, where the tools of both destruction and salvation are housed within the same technological infrastructure.

To comprehend the full gravity of this irony, we must first acknowledge the extent to which technology has empowered child sex offenders.