Attributable to Detective Sergeant Reece Munro:

Dunedin Police are urging parents and guardians to have healthy and open conversations with their young people about the risks of being online, and to be proactive with online safety.

This comes as Police are investigating a recent report of an individual targeting local high school students by posing as someone else online and attempting to extort them.

A quick and easy way to avoid being a victim of child exploitation and sextortion, is to ensure you verify the people you are communicating with online.

When instances of sextortion occur, the offending generally begins with a direct message on social media to the victim. They are then asked to continue chatting on a different app, and gradually the conversation becomes sexualised, although in some cases not obvious to our high school aged children.

From here, the victim is coerced into sharing photos and/or videos of themselves, their school friends or their family. In time, these photos can be used as blackmail in threatening to post online, or share them with people close to the victim.

In some instances, photos are reportedly doctored by the offender to make the victim appear to be in even more compromising positions. Offenders can also capture compromising images of the young person from video files, which can then be traded across the internet.

If you are a victim to Sextortion:

1. Avoid sending anymore images or videos – even if they are threatening you.
2. Remember – once you have complied with their demands there is nothing preventing them targeting you again.
3. Save all the online chat, immediately take screenshots/screen recordings. This is important for making a report to the Police, we need all the evidence that you can gather.
4. Block the profile.
5. Report the content to the platform i.e. the social media or website they contacted you on, or the content has been sent or posted on and request the content is removed.
6. To report this type of offending, please contact Police on 105, or an online report through Netsafe at netsafe.org.nz/report.

Netsafe also provides resources for both young people and adults regarding sextortion at netsafe.org.nz/sextortion/

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