Dubai: Dubai Police has warned of the growing danger of online predators who target children and teenagers through video games and social media, exploiting their trust to obtain personal information and photos - which are then used for blackmail or identity impersonation. The warning follows a case involving a 13-year-old Arab child, whose exploitation led investigators to uncover the same suspect’s involvement in blackmailing nine other children.
The authorities stressed that building trust with a child may begin with seemingly simple requests, such as granting them additional advantages within a game, before moving on to requesting photos and collecting personal data. Dubai Police emphasised the importance of immediate reporting, keeping digital evidence, not being satisfied with simply blocking abusive accounts, and paying attention to what families publish, in terms of photos and details about their children's lives, because simply appearing in a photo in school uniform is enough to reveal the name of the school the child attends.
US technology company Meta explained that hundreds of millions of teenagers have been included in the Teen Accounts system on its platforms, which provides protection settings, restrictions on content, messaging and usage time, with parental supervision tools.
This came during an awareness forum organised by the Dubai Police General Command, represented by the General Department of Criminal Investigation, in partnership with Meta Global, as a continuation of efforts to raise awareness about Cyber Security Month during October. The forum discussed the risks of online grooming, ways to enhance the safety of children and adolescents in the digital space, and the role of security agencies, families, and technology companies in reducing practices targeting young people.
An awareness forum organised by the Dubai Police General Command, represented by the General Department of Criminal Investigation, in partnership with Meta Global, discussed important issues around cyber security for children. Picture credit: SuppliedExploitation of children during gaming
In detail, Lieutenant Colonel Abdullah Al Shehhi, Director of the Electronic Investigations Department at the General Department of Criminal Investigation in Dubai Police, stressed that the speed of reporting is a key factor in protecting children from electronic exploitation, explaining that security efforts alone are not enough to confront these crimes unless they are integrated with the role of parents, social media companies and influencers in spreading digital safety messages and promoting responsible behaviour on the Internet.
Parents were urged to document any attempt to lure their children online by taking screenshots of conversations and the suspect's account details, keeping the digital evidence and not deleting it, and immediately reporting it to the relevant authorities.
Al-Shehhi revealed that the department had received a number of reports related to attempts to lure children through electronic games, noting that one of the incidents that revealed this pattern of crimes began when a 19-year-old man got to know a 13-year-old Arab child while they were both participating in an electronic game, and exploited his desire to obtain additional advantages within the game to lure him into sharing personal photos.
He explained that the young man asked the child to send pictures in exchange for granting him those privileges, and the child complied without realising the risks of sharing his pictures with unknown people. However, his suspicions began to increase when the young man asked him to send pictures of his sister, which prompted him to inform his guardian about what had happened.
Al-Shehhi pointed out that the child’s father acted responsibly and promptly informed the competent authorities, who took the necessary measures to deal with the incident. He noted that the results of examining the case revealed that the same person had previously blackmailed nine other children.
He stressed that the reluctance of some victims to report may contribute to the perpetrator continuing and targeting other children, emphasising that awareness and immediate reporting constitute a protective barrier for the victim and other members of society, noting that the importance of social responsibility lies in promoting awareness that can be relied upon to reduce the number of victims of such practices, especially among young age groups.
Importance of reporting incidents
For his part, Major Khaled Tahlek, Deputy Director of the Cybercrime Department for Monitoring and Security Programs, warned against merely banning accounts that abuse children or threaten their safety without documenting the incident and reporting it to the competent authorities, stressing the importance of reporting any attempt to lure children.
Tahlek stated that child protection should not be limited to the family of the targeted child, but should extend to protecting the rest of society from becoming victims of the same perpetrators. He explained that the correct approach to these cases begins with preserving digital evidence, such as taking screenshots of any blackmail messages or attempts at recruitment, and documenting the username of the account involved, in preparation for filing a report with the relevant authorities.
He stressed that reporting helps enable the relevant authorities to deal with the incident in accordance with the established procedures.
For his part, the head of the Electronic Monitoring Department, Captain Saeed Adel Al-Suwaidi, addressed the methods used by some criminals to lure children through electronic games, explaining that the person who communicates with the child may be one of the players participating in the game, without the child knowing his true identity or intentions.
He pointed out that the process of enticement usually begins by gradually building a relationship of trust with the child, by asking questions that seem innocent and do not arouse suspicion, but in reality aim to collect personal and sensitive information about him, in order to form a complete picture of his identity and circumstances, which can later be exploited in electronic blackmail or impersonating him and committing crimes in his name.
He stressed the importance of raising awareness among children and their parents about the dangers of sharing personal information with strangers online, especially within electronic games, emphasising the need to teach children how to deal with cyberbullying and block abusive accounts.
Dangers of posting children’s pictures online
For his part, Lieutenant Ahmed Abdullah Al Shehhi, Head of the Cybercrime Forecasting and Analysis Center, said that parents are more responsible for protecting their children’s privacy on social media platforms than the children themselves, pointing out the need for families to be aware of the risks of randomly posting family photos and personal details.
He added that a single picture of a child wearing a school uniform may be enough to reveal the school he attends, allowing unknown people to track the school's accounts and posts, and gather more information about the child and his family. He continued that some people may exploit these scattered details to build a complete information file about the child, by following the pictures, posts and daily stories on social media platforms, which may open the door to exploiting that data in committing crimes in the future.
For its part, Meta explained that hundreds of millions of teenagers have been included in the Teen Accounts system across Instagram, Facebook and Messenger platforms, which includes built-in protections aimed at dealing with three of the most prominent concerns of parents, namely the nature of the content that children watch, the people they can communicate with, and the time they spend in front of screens.
The company stated that these accounts are automatically set to content settings suitable for the 13+ age group, along with applying restrictions on messaging and specifying the people who can communicate with teenagers, as well as privacy settings and control over the content that appears to them.
