NBI exec disputes Unicef data on PH child porn

An official of the National Bureau of Investigation took exception to an assessment made by a senior official of the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef) who described the country as the “epicenter of live-stream sexual abuse.”

NBI Cybercrime Division executive officer Victor Lorenzo said Unicef cited figures that were “way too high” compared to the volume recorded by his agency.

He was reacting to a statement made by Lotta Sylwander, the Unicef head in the Philippines, who said there were about about 7,000 reports of cybercrime a month in the Philippines, half of them related to child sexual abuse, making the country the No. 1 global source of child porn.

In an interview on Wednesday, Lorenzo maintained that his division handles around 3,000 cybercrime cases a year and that child porn was not even the top online crime that the NBI deals with.

“The top three are libel, online scams or cyberthreats, followed by sextortion,” said Lorenzo. “The 3,000 cases we face in a year are already a mix of different cybercrimes, one of which is child pornography.”

“We don’t deny that child pornography exists, but that number (from Unicef) seems way too high,” he added, saying child porn accounts for only 5 percent of the total cybercrime cases investigated by the NBI.

Lorenzo also differed with the view offered by Sylwander about “getting the internet providers to come along” to help authorities track down the people behind the sexual abuse of children.

The NBI official pointed out that “it’s actually the money transfer (facilities) that we focus on, since the customers of those (who run child porn sites) will definitely wire them money and to claim it they have to present an ID with a photo.”

“The telcos have actually been very cooperative when it comes to investigations,” he added.