Offences against Children: Internet

(asked on 17th June 2014) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information her Department holds on how many UK-based registered users of the paedophile file sharing network website boylover.net have been identified by international authorities in (a) the US and (b) Holland; what proportion of those was passed to UK authorities for investigation; what steps her Department is taking to trace those registered users; and if she will make a statement.


Answered by
 Portrait
Norman Baker
This question was answered on 2nd July 2014

I refer the Hon. Member to the reply given on 19 June 2014, Official Report, columns 666-667W.
Following two linked international investigations into the boylover.net
website, information was provided to the Child Exploitation and Online
Protection Centre (CEOP) by US authorities and Europol that related to UK-based
registered users. CEOP was, at that time, an affiliate of the Serious Organised
Crime Agency. We do not maintain a record of the number of UK-registered users
of the website identified by United States or Dutch authorities, nor of what
proportion of those users were passed to CEOP. However, as a consequence of the
information provided and through CEOP's own investigations, 240 intelligence
packages were prepared and subsequently disseminated to police forces across
the UK. Further information regarding charges, convictions and open
investigations is handled at a local level by the relevant police force and
is not recorded nationally.

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