Investigators in this field of work are not the jaded, emotionless people who are unaffected by even the most horrific scenes. For all of them, it remains the daily "look into the abyss", the daily confrontation with unimaginable violence and inhuman behavior. Only in a well-functioning group, where everyone looks out for each other and it is always possible to talk about what they have seen, can this work be done in the long term.
In addition to the ability to process these images personally, investigators need to be able to grasp things quickly, have a high level of memory and concentration and an affinity for complex software applications.
Identifying and identifying victims - schools have a key role
The investigators conduct searches very sensitively and in stages. Initially, they only question the specialist departments nationwide about the incriminating images. If this step is unsuccessful, the police only publish images with clothing or faces in the nationwide internal police search portal.
If this search measure is also unsuccessful, the images are sent to the so-called school search: once or twice a year, investigators present teachers with images of victims of abuse (clothed and/or faces only) and ask them to help identify them. This search measure has a high success rate. It is therefore all the more important that as many schools as possible take part. As a last resort, if there are concrete indications of ongoing sexual abuse, the police will publicly search for the victims.
Information through the identification of everyday objects
In the "Stop Child Abuse" project, Europol is asking the public for help: on the website https://www.europol.europa.eu/stopchildabuse, investigators post images of objects that they have seen on child pornographic film and photo material. These can be, for example, a landscape, the furniture in a hotel room, items of clothing or everyday products. Any information about these images can help the police to identify the crime scene, the time of the crime and ultimately the victim and the perpetrator.
No room for "amateur investigators"
Some people think they are helping the police experts by searching for child pornography sites online on their own. Important: Only police experts have the authority to collect evidence. Anyone else can make themselves liable to prosecution, no matter how well-intentioned their efforts may be.
Therefore, anyone who has evidence of child pornography on the internet should report it to the local police. They will take the tip and forward it to the relevant department.
