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Sextortion boom coincides with pandemic’s online shift, as experts raise alarm

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VANCOUVER — The mass shift online brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic coincided with a boom of so-called “sextortion scams,” new data from Statistics Canada suggests.

As authorities aim to educate youth and parents about online sex crimes, experts are calling for more regulation, education and law enforcement.

Sexual extortion, or sextortion, occurs when someone threatens to distribute private, often sexually explicit, material online if the victim doesn’t comply with their demands, usually for money.

The crime gained national attention almost a decade ago when 15-year-old Amanda Todd from Port Coquitlam, B.C., died by suicide after posting a video where she used flash cards to describe being tormented by an anonymous cyberbully. It has been watched more than 14 million times.

The trial of her alleged harasser, Dutch national Aydin Coban, began in the B.C. Supreme Court in June.

He pleaded not guilty to extortion, harassment, communication with a young person to commit a sexual offence and possession and distribution of child pornography. He was not charged in relation to Todd’s death.

Closing arguments in the case wrapped earlier this week and the jury is now deliberating.

Signy Arnason, associate executive director at the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, said the issue has grown exponentially since Todd took her life in October 2012.

“It’s out of control,” she said in an interview.

Police across the country have been issuing warnings to the public about sextortion scams targeting youth.

“Unfortunately, police around the world have tragically seen some of these incidents end in victims taking their own lives,” Nova Scotia RCMP Internet Child Exploitation Unit Cpl. Mark Sobieraj said in a news release last week. “We’re urging parents and guardians to talk with children about the potential dangers, emphasizing that they can come to you for help.”

Statistics Canada data released Tuesday shows police-reported extortion cases in Canada rose by nearly 300 per cent in the last decade, but the crime significantly rose during the pandemic.

Incidents of non-consensual distribution of intimate images involving adult or child victims increased by 194 cases in 2021, representing a nine per cent jump from the year before, and a 52 per cent increase compared with the previous five-year average.

“These concerning increases are being facilitated by social media platforms and other electronic services providers,” said the Canadian Centre for Child Protection’s executive director, Lianna McDonald, in a news release. “It should be a wake-up call.”

Cybertip.ca, a national tip line for reporting online child sexual abuse, said it has received “an unprecedented volume of reports from youth and sometimes their concerned parents about falling prey to aggressive sextortion tactics,” amounting to about 300 online extortion cases a month.

Wayne MacKay, a professor emeritus of law at Dalhousie University, said the increase could be partly explained by awareness and better policing of cybercrime, but noted research also suggests that online child sexual abuse often goes unreported.

A review of the 322 sextortion cases Cybertip.ca received in July found that when gender was known, 92 per cent of them involved boys or young men.

“The review also showed an emerging tactic where the victim is sent nude images of children from the person behind the fake account. The offender will then threaten to report the victim to police, claiming they are in possession of child sexual abuse material. Demands for money immediately follow,” the child protection centre said in a news release this week.

David Fraser, an internet and privacy lawyer with the Canadian law firm McInnes Cooper in Halifax, said a main reason some youth may not come forward is they believe they could be charged with child pornography of their own image. He said this is a wide misconception, sometimes even among law enforcement.

“We need to be very careful about the messaging we send to young people, just to make sure that there are safe places that they can go to and get support before things escalate,” Fraser said.

He cited a 2001 Supreme Court of Canada decision that established a “personal use” exception to the child pornography provisions. It said young people have a right to create intimate images of themselves as long as they don’t depict illegal sexual activity, are held only for private use, and were created with the consent of the people in the image.

Fraser would like to see more police resources and education around the issue.

“I have generally seen across the board a lack of skill and competence on the part of police to take existing laws and translate them into the online context,” he said.

“Extortion is extortion whether you’re extorting somebody by threatening to disclose nude pictures that you have extorted them to provide, or whether you’re extorting somebody through other forms of more conventional blackmail.”

Molly Reynolds, a lawyer with Torys LLP in Toronto, said her civil caseload on sexual extortion has increased significantly.

“The demand is huge. It is at least a 10-year-old crisis, and we are just beginning to understand it more broadly across Canada,” she said. “There are still a lot of people who really don’t get police attention when they do report this criminal conduct.”

She said civil court tends to be a better option for adult victims who know their perpetrator.

“You’re more likely to see a law enforcement response if it can fall into the child pornography offences, and not just the non-consensual distribution offences or voyeurism ones,” she said.

“(Children) are, in some ways, better served through the criminal procedure, whereas adults, I think, are more often having to turn to the civil procedures.”

Darren Laur, chief training officer at White Hatter, an internet safety and digital literacy education company, said the law has not kept up with technological advancements.

He said so-called deep fakes, in which an existing image or video is used to create fake but believable video footage, will create new challenges because extortionists will no longer need to coerce a person to perform explicit acts.

“The reality is people are going to use the goodness of technology and sometimes weaponize it. That’s the problem with deep fakes. I perceive that deep fakes are going to be weaponized, especially when it comes to tech-facilitated sexual abuse,” said Laur, who is a retired Victoria police sergeant.

Reynolds agreed but said she doesn’t think the law will ever be able to “keep up with technology and the harms it can create.”

“There is a really big role, I think, for the courts to interpret what we already have, and allow it to evolve just as the technological risks evolve. We need to be able to make it easier for people to get these cases to court, whether criminal or civil, and to test the boundaries,” she said.

McDonald, with the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, has begun calling for more regulation of social media companies, including Snapchat and Instagram, where the organization has found most of the harm to children occurs.

“This is an ongoing problem that is getting worse, and so it really does beg the question about what are these companies doing to keep children safe? It is incredulous that social media platforms allow total adult strangers to directly reach out and target our children without any consequence,” she said in a news release Thursday.

Laur said he has been calling for years for the creation of an online regulatory agency, like Australia’s eSafety Commissioner.

“They basically have the blueprint on how to do this,” he said. “We need something similar here in our country.”

The Department of Canadian Heritage said in a statement the federal government “is currently developing an approach to address harmful content online, which includes the potential creation of a regulatory body.”

As part of this process, it said Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez is “currently conducting roundtables across Canada to hear from victims of online harm, including children and youth.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 6, 2022.

 

Brieanna Charlebois, The Canadian Press

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Canada’s Denis Shapovalov wins Belgrade Open for his second ATP Tour title

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BELGRADE, Serbia – Canada’s Denis Shapovalov is back in the winner’s circle.

The 25-year-old Shapovalov beat Serbia’s Hamad Medjedovic 6-4, 6-4 in the Belgrade Open final on Saturday.

It’s Shapovalov’s second ATP Tour title after winning the Stockholm Open in 2019. He is the first Canadian to win an ATP Tour-level title this season.

His last appearance in a tournament final was in Vienna in 2022.

Shapovalov missed the second half of last season due to injury and spent most of this year regaining his best level of play.

He came through qualifying in Belgrade and dropped just one set on his way to winning the trophy.

Shapovalov’s best results this season were at ATP 500 events in Washington and Basel, where he reached the quarterfinals.

Medjedovic was playing in his first-ever ATP Tour final.

The 21-year-old, who won the Next Gen ATP Finals presented by PIF title last year, ends 2024 holding a 9-8 tour-level record on the season.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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Talks to resume in B.C. port dispute in bid to end multi-day lockout

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VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.

The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.

The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.

The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.

The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.

MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.

In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.

“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.

“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”

In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.

“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.

The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.

“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”

The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.

The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.

A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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The Royal Canadian Legion turns to Amazon for annual poppy campaign boost

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The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.

Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.

Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.

Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.

“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.

“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”

Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.

“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.

Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.

“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”

But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.

Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.

“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.

Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.

The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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