Youth worker pretended to be a girl and used Instagram to groom boys
- A youth worker from Southampton posed as a 16-year-old girl online and used Instagram to groom more than 70 young boys.
- He was investigated by the National Crime Agency (NCA) which found his online alias ‘Lizzielemon’ to identify his victims on Instagram, MyLol and Love Crush.
- His crimes were then moved onto other platforms Discord, Skype and Google Hangouts.
- The youth worker engaged in sexualised conversations with his victims as if they were in a fantasy online world.
- Victims would be told that ‘Lizzielemon’ was from Bristol or Birmingham and that he had a fetish for dominating boys in school uniform and sports kits and engaging in teacher/student role play.
- The NCA has said that anyone being pressured or coerced into sending sexual images or videos online to remove themselves from the conversation, report the matter and talk to a trusted adult.
- For more please visit the ITV News website.
Google rolls out passkey technology
- Google is rolling out its passkey technology to Google accounts from Thursday.
- The passkey is designed to replace passwords completely by enabling authentication using fingerprint ID, facial ID or a pin on your device.
- A cryptographic private key is stored on the user’s device and the corresponding public key is uploaded to Google.
- When a user signs in the device must solve a unique challenge using the private key to generate a signature. The signature is then verified for the user to access their account.
- Google are rolling out the technology to mark World Password Day.
- Apple has started using passkeys in iOS16 and the latest MacOS release and Microsoft has been using it through the Authenticator app.
- For more please visit the Guardian’s website.
Logan Mwangi and Lola James among neglect and abuse deaths
- 32 reviews in progress about children in Wales are currently underway as a result of death or serious injury following abuse or neglect.
- Wales Children’s Commissioner said safeguarding measures need to change in order to protect children.
- This is the most that has been published in any one year.
- A number of recent headlines have highlighted that deaths of abused or neglected children could have been prevented.
- Funding issues including time and resources are said to be having an impact.
- £10m has been announced as part of a plan to recruit more social workers as well as a unified safeguarding review to help better identify learning and provide a clear action plan to improve services.
- For more on this story, please visit the BBC News website.
No excuse as police force ‘lets the public down’ over child protection
- A damning report into how a police force protects children from sexual abuse has “let the public and the most vulnerable in society down”.
- An inspection of North Yorkshire Police found that the standard of investigations in child protection cases were poor and safeguarding and child protection were not being prioritised enough.
- A review was set for a year later following the recommendations, but the findings published on 3rd of April 2022 were not promising.
- Out of 11 child protection investigations only three were judged to be ‘good.’ Five were rated as ‘inadequate’.
- Whilst some improvements have been made there are still inconsistencies and the use of “inappropriate victim blaming language”.
- The force has invested in the training of officers and control staff as well as investing in central safeguarding teams.
- The force recognises there is still important work to be done and are committed to fulfilling the actions in their improvement plan.
- For more on this story, please visit the Yahoo news website.
