Media report: cases of child pornography have risen sharply

The number of recorded cases of depictions of child abuse on the Internet has apparently almost doubled in the first half of the year. According to a media report, the police are receiving more and more information.

More and more references to depictions of child abuse online, more and more proceedings to be conducted: The President of the Federal Criminal Police Office, Holger Münch, said that in the first half of 2021 alone, as many cases of so-called child pornography were recorded as in the entire year 2020.

The “Bild am Sonntag” quoted the BKA boss as saying: “The significant increase in the number of child abuse portrayals on the Internet will increasingly push the police to their capacity limits.” Another reason for the increase is apparently the growing willingness of the population to immediately report any finds on the Internet to the authorities.

BKA expects a further increase

Back in May of this year, when presenting the annual figures for 2020, Münch stated that he expected a further increase in the number of cases in the coming years. The technical procedures for identifying suspicious files on the internet are getting better and better, and at the same time international cooperation between investigators is getting closer. From 2022, new rules for IT companies will also apply in Germany.

According to the BKA, the strong increase compared to the previous year was due, among other things, to the increased number of reports from the semi-public US organization NCMEC to the German investigators. This systematically collects suspected cases, cooperating with Internet providers.

Investigations against networks

Another factor was the extensive investigations into child porn rings in Germany. In the previous year, the number of cases had more than doubled compared to 2019 by 53 percent to just under 18,800. If the emerging trend continues this year, almost 40,000 such crimes could have become known by the end of this year.