OVER the last year, families and children across Yorkshire have spent more time online than ever before.

While that’s been essential in allowing families to communicate and children to take part in online learning, it’s also led to a heightened risk of abuse as offenders take to social media and online apps to target young people.

New research by the NSPCC has shown that in Yorkshire police recorded 1,798 online child sex crimes between October 2019 and October 2020 where the method of communication was known. Most were in West Yorkshire, with 1,334 offences recorded, and more than half these offences were committed through apps owned by Facebook, including Instagram, Facebook and Messenger.

While this is worrying enough, Facebook has plans to introduce end to end encryption on its private messaging services. The NSPCC is hugely concerned about this as we believe this move would greatly increase the risk to children and young people. End to end encryption does have privacy benefits, but child protection experts, law enforcement agencies and Facebook themselves agree that the move will make it harder to identify predators and discover and disrupt online child abuse.

Private messaging is the most common avenue for abusers to contact children, that’s why it’s so important that robust, effective safeguards are in place before encryption is introduced. Recent police figures showed WhatsApp accounted for one in every 10 incidents of online child sexual abuse where Facebook’s apps were involved. Instagram, owned by Facebook, was used in more than a third of all instances, while Facebook and Messenger were each used in about 13per cent. However, tip-offs to the National Crime Agency from Facebook made up just over one in every 100 last year because they cannot see the content of messages to report the abuse.

The NSPCC has repeatedly demanded that this encryption should only be allowed if and when the platforms can prove it will not compromise children’s safety. The Government is introducing its Online Harms Bill which will give Ofcom power to take action against firms whose design choices put children at risk, but we want assurance that this legislation is used early enough to ensure they protect children. Last month the Office for National Statistics revealed children are contacted by direct message in almost three quarters of cases when approached by strangers online. We’re calling on the Government to create an Online Safety Bill that puts children’s safety before the convenience of tech firms. There are steps you can take to help keep your children safe online. Start a conversation with them about apps and games they use and people they speak to. If you explore these together, they’ll be more likely to come to you if they encounter something that upsets them. Visit net-aware.org.uk