How Livestreamed Child Abuse Is Challenging How We Think About Online Privacy

“We’ve seen it in Latin America, throughout Africa, other parts of Southeast Asia,” says Mike Tsittakalakis, the acting division chief at the Department of Homeland Security Cybercrime Center. “It’s a huge number just for the Philippines but we know it’s not just happening there.” The primary consumer base remains the U.S., though Australia, France, Germany, and the U.K. also rank highly, according to the IJM.

Livestreamed CSAM is especially pernicious because it gives abusers the thrill of directing and interacting with victims while leaving little chance of being caught. While static CSAM has circulated online for decades—allowing for the creation of digital markers, or “hashes,” that can flag existing files and lead to their removal—livestreamed abuse disappears the moment a call ends. “The abuse didn’t stop,” says John Shehan, vice president of the NCMEC. “The lights just went off.”

Each morning, Shehan arrives at NCMEC’s headquarters in Alexandria, Va., home to roughly 500 staff as well as two dozen permanently stationed officers from agencies including the FBI, Secret Service, U.S. Marshals, U.K. National Crime Agency, and U.S. Postal Inspection Service. It’s here that most initial CSAM reports arrive through NCMEC’s CyberTipline, which acts as a global clearinghouse that triages 80,000 to 100,000 daily.