The Philippines launches website for cyber crimes

The country’s primary investigative agency—Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG)—has launched a website where people can report internet-related crimes involving children. The website, called “Angel Net,” will serve as an online complaint centre on incidents of Internet pornography, identity theft, and other cybercrimes involving children, CIDG chief Police Director Samuel Pagdilao Jr. said. The move is also part of the government advocacy to protect kids from Internet addiction and cyber predators. CIDG has also opened an Internet and Child Protection Centre, a 24/7 operational centre “to enhance the capability of the CIDG to monitor and track cyber predators for their eventual arrests and prosecution in court. “Confronting crimes of this nature cannot be dealt with traditional anti-criminality operation especially with the kind of situation law enforcers are in,” Chief Superintendent Director Samuel Pagdilao Jr explained, noting that another problem is the absence of a “cyber tip line” for reports on cybercrime. The CIDG has recorded 72 computer related crimes last year and 56 during the first semester. He said the Internet was being used by criminals because it was easy to view profiles of prospects so he advised people to be careful in using their social network account. Gilbert Sosa, Senior Superintendent of CIDG anti-transnational crime division said the agency will have a legal framework, an organization-capacity building to strengthen the law enforcement and an awareness advocacy for the public to know the do’s and don’ts in using the Internet. “Servers of these websites were in other countries so we need to cooperate with them to gather evidences; we can do that, in fact we can still preserve a data in 48 hours,” said. Sosa said that for the past decade, Internet use in the Philippines has increased by 1000 per cent. The Philippines is now number 17 in the world in terms of Internet use and number five user of Facebook. Facebook is the most common social networking site being used by criminals, with 83 per cent of Internet users having Facebook accounts, Sosa said.