Sec. 2. Findings
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Congress finds the following: In a survey of online peer-to-peer networks, there is an alarming amount of traffic related to the online trading and sharing of child sexual exploitation material. Child sexual exploitation, which includes child pornography, child sexual abuse, and child sex trafficking is a complex and growing problem that requires a coordinated, multifaceted response. Victims of child sexual exploitation are less likely to self-report or be identified by outside sources because of their age and the nature of the crimes committed against them.
Individuals participating in the possession and trade of child pornography are significantly more likely to also participate in other forms of child sexual exploitation, including child sexual abuse and child trafficking. The detection of online peer-to-peer trading of child pornography focuses on images of children under age 12. Approximately 20 percent of the total number of child sexual exploitation images discovered feature children ages 0 to 4. The Internet Crimes Against Children Child Online Protective Services (ICACCOPS) program has been used to identify and collect evidence for the purpose of prosecuting offenders online.
The program also catalogues images and creates a digital library for the purpose of identifying victims of child sexual exploitation through these images. In 2017, using such program, which scans the Internet for peer-to-peer trading of child pornography, law enforcement officials identified 663,853 unique Internet Protocol
(IP)addresses associated with the possession or trading of child pornography. Each unique Internet Protocol address is associated with possessing or trading a range of images, with some possessing more than 50,000 images that depict the sexual abuse of children. Training military criminal investigative organizations on advanced tools is integral to the protection of both military and civilian children. Continued training on advanced technological tools will allow military criminal investigative organizations to acquire, adapt, and maintain the technical skills and knowledge needed to keep up with the landscape of online child sexual exploitation, which is constantly changing as perpetrators take new steps to avoid detection. There are existing best practices and models that the Department of Defense should leverage, including online technologies that can simplify the investigative process.