By Stephanie Costigan – Lethbridge Herald Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, March 8, 2024.
Herald Photo: Stephanie Costigan Const. Heather Bungle will speak at SACPA on the topics of child internet exploitation, criminal investigation, computer-related child sexual abuse, seduction and child pornography.Members of the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team spoke at a session of the Southern Alberta Public Affairs Council in Lethbridge on Thursday about its objectives and the investigation of child internet exploitation, criminal investigations, computer-related child sexual abuse, seduction and child pornography. He gave a lecture on the theme. Elderly groups.
The guest speaker was Heather Bungle, an RCMP member of the Southern Alberta Internet Child Exploitation Unit (ICE) with many years of experience investigating child exploitation.
“I just want to touch on some of the current trends and violations that I’m looking into and things to watch out for,” Bungle said.
Ms. Bungle spoke about the work she does and the education shared by ICE to prevent child sexual exploitation.
“What we do is investigate child sexual exploitation through the Internet. And we are now working to reduce harm through public education and prevention programs.”
Bungle pointed to the addition of six RCMP corporate alert forensic technicians and Canada’s first mobile forensics unit to help preview devices.
“We have a great team of really smart investigators and forensic technicians and people who work to put bad guys behind bars,” she exclaimed.
Mr Bungle said there were about five or six specialist Crown prosecutors. She spoke about the impact of having a specialist Crown prosecutor.
“It’s a huge thing to get this done because it’s so technical. There’s just something about it that people don’t understand because it’s so specific. So we have to retrain prosecutors every time. There is a huge lack of it.”
She said Cyber Tip is the Canadian Center for Child Protection and is a great resource. Bungle said they not only work with local victims and offenders, but also operate around the world.
“We’re working with all law enforcement agencies because this is clearly a crime that knows no borders. That means (if) there’s a criminal here in Lethbridge and there may be a victim here in Lethbridge.” There isn’t.
“But you could have a criminal here in Lethbridge and a victim in the UK, or you could have a victim here and a criminal in Australia. We work with law enforcement agencies around the world. ” she said.
He describes individuals who seduce teenagers into sending explicit nude photos, blackmail them into sending money, and share the photos with friends and family, and that the proportion of teenagers warned how high it was among men. Bungle also shared the definition of child pornography.
“If you read the warrant, you have to call it child pornography, because that’s the definition of criminal law in Canada. But a lot of times when you think of child pornography, it’s like a child in a bathtub, something like a child in a bathtub. Or it’s thought to be like kids in sexy clothes.
“But at the end of the day, it’s an image, it’s a photograph, it’s a record of a child’s sexual path. It’s a crime scene, and every time those images and videos are shared, that child is exposed again and again. You will be victimized again and again,” Bungle said.
She said Canada has good laws and documents such as articles and illustrations about child abuse can result in a conviction.
Mr Bungle explained the definition of internet seduction and how it can be a crime.
“Attraction on the Internet is also a big issue that we are dealing with. It can be very confusing and offensive because there are so many factors, but the easiest way to explain this is that what is seduction? It’s just someone using telecommunications in furtherance of a crime, and there doesn’t need to be a secondary crime actually occurring.”
She recalled that in 2014, there were about 300 to 400 files per year and that number had increased significantly.
“I think last year we ended up with a little over 1,600 files. And that’s just in the South. That’s just when you have eight to 12 investigators on any given day. So you have a lot more resources and time. It’s unfortunate that many of these files go unaddressed because there aren’t any,” Bungle said.
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