While networking websites like Facebook and Twitter facilitate the connection of millions of people across the globe, they sometimes cause issues beyond their intended benefits.

Due to two recent incidents involving potential sexual predators, social networking programs Instagram and Kik are beginning to draw attention from area police departments.

In each case, suspects used the sites to misrepresent themselves and make contact with juveniles, Allenstown Master Patrolman Rebecca King said. Profiles on the sites can be public, giving anyone the ability to view them – enter the opportunity for sexual predators.

Bedford Chief of Police John Bryfonski said his department is always on the lookout for potential online predators. Bedford also has a detective, Matthew Fleming, on the ICAC task force.

“Bedford PD is very concerned about online – the use of the Internet by sexual predators, especially those seeking to make connections with our children,” Bryfonski said. “Certainly, we address those matters and take them as very seriously when they do pop up, and work to be in coordination with the ICAC task force throughout the state.”

Said King, “Anyone can see your profile and send you the typical request to become friends or whatever, and then they strike up a conversation, which is what it seems the predators are doing. I think they’re setting up fake profiles as kids themselves and making contact with these kids.”

King is a member of the Internet Crimes Against Children, or ICAC, task force. As part of the ICAC, King receives referrals through a cyber tipline associated with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Because the two cases had local roots, King was alerted of the incidents within her jurisdiction.

“The first case was a juvenile that was using the Instagram and the Kik program,” she said. “The suspect had sent photos back and forth, too, by befriending the kid on this program.”

In the first incident, King was alerted because the victim was a local youth. The victim in the second incident was actually out of state, but King again got the call because the cell phone used to access the site from the suspect’s end came through in the Bear Brook State Park area.

“The second instance was – photos weren’t exchanged – but it was more a sexually explicit conversation going back and forth,” King said. “I think the parents interrupted it before it got any further than that.”

A major issue with the sites, King said, is the potential to access them from anywhere.

With the second instance, the suspect’s cell phone was traced back to a state park. King said the reports take a long time to get to her because they have to make their way through several departments when they come in through national and state agencies.

“With these programs, you can access them through smart phones or iPads, or laptops or anything like that, so it’s very mobile,” King said. “People can access it pretty much anywhere, which makes it so hard to find these suspects.”

King said there is a great concern with these two incidents because they don’t usually get two cases in such a close time period. With new technology and sites popping up, King said Allenstown police are not even familiar with Instagram and Kik yet.

“It’s pretty rare for us to get two cases like this so close together,” King said. “That kind of makes me think that it’s definitely an up-and-coming thing. We ... get these cases few and far between, and to see two of them within the past month is a rare thing for us.”

But for kids, the growing trend of social media is constantly becoming more accessible.
Because they can use computers, phones, tablets and even iPods to get on social networking sites, parents have a difficult task ahead of them. The convenience of logging on wherever and whenever, King said, makes policing for sexual predators more difficult for both authorities and parents.

“It’s so easy for the kids to go on it, I don’t think the parents realize,” she said. “They seem to be using these programs to target these kids and get them to send pictures back and forth, and basically, that’s how they’re getting their child pornography.”