Agenda

• Moderator
  – Liu Hui-Wen, Professor, Department of Journalism, National Chengchi University
• Panelists:
  – Wang Yi-Fan, Member of the Executive Yuan’s Task Force on Child Welfare and Rights Promotion、Student of Taichung Municipal Chung Gang Senior High School
  – Liu Yu-Jun, Executive Secretary, Institute of Watch Internet Network
  – Dai Zhi-He, Sub-Lieutenant, Taipei City Police Department, Women and Children’s Protection Division

15:45-16:00  Q&A

 

Meeting Minutes

Wang Yi-Fan, (Member of the Executive Yuan’s Task Force on Child Welfare and Rights Promotion、Student of Taichung Municipal Chung Gang Senior High School)

Ms. Wang Yi-Fan clearly pointed out that in the digital age, information circulates rapidly, and technology is highly advanced. However, this has also given rise to the issue of privacy breaches. Currently, digital privacy education in schools is not comprehensive, leading to students having only a partial understanding of the consequences of privacy breaches. Often, by the time students become aware of privacy issues, the breach or exposure has already occurred. Parents also contribute to the vulnerability of children’s privacy, as they may share details about their children on social media, leading to unintentional privacy leaks. Additionally, when parents assist in enrolling their children in courses, information may unintentionally leak due to the completion of registration details.

Drawing from personal life experiences, Ms. Wang illustrated instances where children neglect privacy while using the internet, including:

• Under peer influence, children download and use mobile games, during which they provide personal information such as name, email, phone number, and age, leading to privacy leaks.
• With the popularity of short video apps in recent years, children imitate interesting videos or challenges they see, sometimes revealing private information such as location.
• As children grow older, they download social apps to meet friendship needs. Compared to regular apps, social apps often request more information, exacerbating the risk of privacy breaches. Children, trusting online friendships, may engage in further communication with online friends, resulting in adults obtaining a considerable amount of children’s privacy, leading to the leakage of private images.
• In educational environments like schools, government or companies collaborate with schools to provide educational platforms for children. Although these platforms serve as educational resources, the personal information provided during registration may leak to the platform and companies.
• Teachers often use the internet to send messages when announcing assignments or class matters. If these messages are not encrypted, students’ email and basic information may be at risk of leakage.
• Teachers, students, or parents often screenshot and share information without consent, leading to privacy breaches.

She emphasizes that to protect children’s digital privacy, children must be aware of the importance of privacy and recognize the potential for privacy breaches in everyday events. Privacy awareness should be instilled by both schools and parents. While schools have started promoting information and media literacy (such as advising students not to upload sensitive photos and videos), there is insufficient focus on privacy breaches related to app usage. Parents, who may not be familiar with internet privacy issues, need to enhance their awareness of relevant topics to provide digital privacy education for their children.

Ms. Wang believes that when constructing digital privacy policies, the voices and perspectives of children should be taken into account.

 

Liu Yu-Jun (Executive Secretary, Institute of Watch Internet Network)

Ms. Liu Yu-Jun first outlined common online threats faced by children, including cyberbullying, online enticement, online scams, and the leakage of intimate images. These threats are closely related to privacy disclosure, as explained below:

• Cyberbullying incidents, when posted online, often lead to doxxing of the bully. Using mosaic to protect the identity of the individuals involved in the video can mitigate subsequent effects.
• Perpetrators of online enticement need to possess information about the victim’s location and age to carry out their actions.
• Online scams typically involve the exchange of information.
• If the identity information of the subject of intimate images remains undisclosed, it becomes challenging for malicious individuals to threaten the victim.

Ms. Liu then proceeded to introduce common patterns of children’s privacy leaks:

• Self-disclosure on social media: Children introduce themselves and showcase their lives on platforms like Facebook, but excessive information sharing may make them targets for doxxing.
• Selfies and posts: Selfies can lead to the leakage of personal images, names, and even student IDs; posting check-ins may disclose personal whereabouts.
• Voluntary provision of information: Children providing information during online interactions may be vulnerable to online enticement, as individuals with malicious intent can extract details about the child’s school, address, age, and family members through conversation.
• Exposure or doxxing: Detailed sensitive information about children may be provided by relatives or friends, leading to the leakage of personal information.
• Adding strangers as friends: Social media or networking platforms recommend friends through algorithms. When accepting friend requests from strangers, privacy may be compromised through chat conversations.

Among all patterns of children’s privacy leaks, the leaking of intimate images is the most dangerous. According to a survey conducted by iWin in 2022, children who actively send personal intimate images are more likely to experience harassment due to personal information leakage, parents sharing information or whereabouts on Facebook, being doxxed or publicly criticized online, or facing bullying or malicious comments on social media. This situation is also observed in children whose sexual content has been leaked.

Regarding doxxing methods, malicious individuals may use both Chinese and English names, keywords, people search engines, work experience, email addresses, educational background, and various online platforms such as PTT, Instagram, Facebook, and Dcard. The speaker emphasized that once digital footprints are on the internet, they may exist indefinitely and should be handled with caution.

Online platforms bear the significant responsibility of safeguarding the digital privacy of children. Their obligations include formulating reasonable and transparent privacy terms, making privacy settings public, easily accessible, and clear, defaulting to the highest privacy protection for children’s accounts, and providing effective reporting and response channels. However, platforms face challenges in children’s digital privacy protection, such as the lack of an effective, widely accepted age verification mechanism, difficulty in balancing data collection to avoid invasion while ensuring accurate user age confirmation, and resource constraints for smaller platforms in developing privacy protection mechanisms.

As for how individuals can protect their own digital privacy, the speaker provided the following recommended measures:

• Enhance privacy settings on social media accounts.
• Exercise caution when sharing and disable location permissions in applications.
• Differentiate between official and personal accounts.
• Avoid using social media on public devices.
• Change passwords regularly.
• Use two-factor authentication.

Avoid clicking on suspicious links.

 

Dai Zhi-He  (Sub-Lieutenant, Taipei City Police Department, Women and Children’s Protection Division)

Mr. Dai Zhi-He, approaching the issue from a law enforcement perspective, shared observations on cases of intimate image leaks involving children. He addressed common tactics used in sexual image enticement, the reasons behind such leaks, post-incident protection measures for victims, evidence collection items and key points for victims, precautions during evidence collection, and law enforcement challenges. Mr. Dai emphasized that despite Taiwan’s strengthened legal penalties under the “Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act,” strict laws have not effectively deterred crimes of sexual exploitation against minors, as indicated by statistical data.

Common Tactics in Sexual Image Enticement:

• Perpetrators posing as the same gender, requesting victims to provide sexual images under the guise of comparing body shapes.
• Perpetrators posing as talent scouts, asking victims to showcase their physique.
• Perpetrators using false lingerie advertisements or opportunities for endorsements of intimate care products, requesting victims to provide sexual images.
• Perpetrators pretending to be in a relationship with the victim or using disguised attractive individuals to solicit photos.
• Perpetrators using in-game currency, equipment, or weapons as incentives to persuade victims to capture sexual images.
• Perpetrators using monetary incentives to coerce victims into capturing sexual images.

Reasons Behind Sexual Image Leaks:

• Prevalence of social and networking apps, especially during the the COVID-19 epidemic.
• Victims seeking emotional attachment, recognition, and praise.
• Insufficient understanding and recognition of sexual images by victims.
• Varied and evolving methods employed by perpetrators.

Post-Incident Protection for Victims:

• Victims should preserve evidence, not delete chat records, and avoid blocking the perpetrator for initial evidence collection by law enforcement.
• Victims should report the incident immediately to increase the chances of apprehending the suspect before or during the initial spread of the video.
• Avoid letting victims face the issue alone. Parents should provide support and accompany the victim when reporting the incident to prevent the victim from complying with the perpetrator’s instructions to deliver money or meet in person.
• Notify platforms to take down the video. In the first instance of encountering a leaked sexual video, victims should refrain from taking any action before completing the report and evidence collection. If the video has already been spread, law enforcement can assist in taking it down and reporting.

Evidence Collection Items and Key Points for Victims:

• Recording the time of video capture.
• Noting the account and ID of the video poster.
• Recording the IP address of the video poster (if available).
• Documenting the content and link of the posted video.
• Using screen captures to collect evidence, as many platforms and apps have limited-time dynamic or one-time view features.

Precautions During Evidence Collection:

• Safeguarding sexual privacy images to prevent their leakage during the reporting process, transfer, or archiving.
• Avoiding the deletion of data or blocking the perpetrator out of fear, making it difficult for law enforcement to trace.
• Turning off location services before reporting to prevent the perpetrator from tracking the victim’s whereabouts.
• Refraining from provoking the perpetrator or making public statements after reporting.
• Discouraging the victim from handling the issue alone or concealing it, which may lead to further mistakes.

Law Enforcement Challenges:

• Some leaked sexual images are hosted on overseas platforms, beyond the jurisdiction of Taiwanese law enforcement, making data retrieval difficult.
• Even with access to data, the IP addresses of video distributors are often located abroad, making it challenging to trace.
• While law enforcement can access some data, platform operators may provide limited information.
• Sensitivity and empathy of case handlers may be insufficient. Past cases have seen instances where law enforcement notified suspects to come forward for questioning, giving suspects time to destroy evidence.

Mr. Dai concluded by advising parents to understand the apps and mobile games commonly used by teenagers and pay attention to live streaming platforms, as these sites are prone to incidents of sexual image leaks.

Presentation Download <Provided with the consent of the speaker>

– Wang Yi-Fan (Member of the Executive Yuan’s Task Force on Child Welfare and Rights Promotion、Student of Taichung Municipal Chung Gang Senior High School) – Presentation Download
– Liu Yu-Jun (Executive Secretary, Institute of Watch Internet Network) – Presentation Download
– Dai Zhi-He (Sub-Lieutenant, Taipei City Police Department, Women and Children’s Protection Division) – Presentation Download