2013-2014 Evaluation of the National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet

2013-2014 Evaluation of the National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet PDF Version (896 KB)
Table of contents

Note: [ * ] indicates severances made under the Access to Information and Privacy Act.

Executive Summary

Evaluation supports accountability to Parliament and Canadians by helping the Government of Canada to credibly report on the results achieved with resources invested in programs. Evaluation supports deputy heads in managing for results by informing them about whether their programs are producing the outcomes that they were designed to achieve, at an affordable cost; and, supports policy and program improvements by helping to identify lessons learned and best practices.

What we examined

The National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet (the National Strategy) is a horizontal initiative providing a comprehensive, coordinated approach to enhancing the protection of children on the Internet and pursuing those who use technology to prey on them. The evaluation covered the activities delivered under the National Strategy by Public Safety Canada, including: the Canadian Centre for Child Protection as a funding recipient for the management of the national tipline Cybertip.ca, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (through NCECC—National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre, a national division of the Canadian Police Centre for Missing and Exploited Children/Behavioural Sciences Branch) and the Department of Justice. The evaluation included the Contribution Program to Combat Child Sexual Exploitation and Human Trafficking and its administration by Public Safety Canada. The scope of the evaluation covered the time period over the past five years (July 2008 to December 2013).

Why it's important

The advent of the Internet has considerably facilitated child sexual exploitation behaviour, changing the way offences are committed, investigated and prosecuted, as well as the volume of these offences. Investigations into Internet-based child sexual exploitation are complex and often international in scope. The National Strategy aims to ensure national collaboration and to provide central coordination with regard to investigations, reporting of suspected cases, providing specialized training to law enforcement, public education and awareness, research, as well as cooperation with the international community.

What we found

Relevance

There is a continued need to address the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet. Evidence shows increasing trends in the number of reported offences, the availability of material and the severity of these criminal acts. The increasing use of the Internet, mobile technologies and social media have facilitated the sexual exploitation of children. Concerns about child pornography have extended to the availability of material on peer-to-peer networks, the “dark Web” and through encrypted technologies. The problem extends well beyond Canada's borders. Law enforcement faces increasing challenges posed by transnational child sex offenders in addition to online child sexual exploitation offences in general. These types of international investigations are appropriately characterized as increasingly complex.

The National Strategy remains relevant to ensure national collaboration and a consistent national approach, as well as cooperation with the international community. The evaluation points to a continued need for improved data collection, increased research efforts and enhanced information exchange at the national level in order to better understand the underpinnings and contributing factors surrounding online child sexual exploitation. There may be a need to revisit the current mandate as a number of areas of concern are expanding (e.g. transnational child sex offenders, self-peer exploitation or “sexting”, cyberbullying, sextortion, sexualized child modelling) that were not originally envisioned by the National Strategy. Increased public reporting continues to put resourcing pressures on the law enforcement community. There is also evidence to indicate that there is still a need to increase knowledge and awareness about Internet child sexual exploitation and that the issue needs to be addressed through a multi-faceted approach (e.g. socially through education and prevention, and complemented by law enforcement efforts).

The National Strategy aligns with federal priorities and the departmental mandates of the federal Strategy partners. The safety and security of children is central to the federal strategic priorities as reflected in numerous legislative initiatives, ministerial press releases, official documents and initiatives, and is consistent with the federal commitment made most recently in the 2013 Speech from the Throne.

The National Strategy aligns with federal legislative roles and responsibilities of Strategy partners and the broad role of the federal government in the safety and security of Canadians. Investigations cross jurisdictions and require the collaboration and coordination of many stakeholders nationally and internationally. There is an opportunity for PS to provide greater leadership at the national level in areas of cooperation and in facilitating data collection, research and information sharing. The National Strategy also supports international commitments aimed at combating child sexual exploitation on the Internet.

Evidence suggests that initiatives by other jurisdictions or non-profit organizations tend to complement the National Strategy. However, there may be opportunities for greater synergy and collaboration, especially between the federal government and provinces and territories in order to ensure that federal investments are targeted to areas of greatest need. In support of this, Strategy partners continue to develop partnerships with provinces, non-governmental organizations and private industry as well as participate in the Federal/Provincial/Territorial committees. From an enforcement perspective, the Strategy helps avoid duplication by providing a centralized coordinated approach and central point of contact for investigations that cross multiple jurisdictions nationally and internationally. Without a centralized coordinated approach, it was suggested that the system in Canada would be disparate. Despite the different organizations involved at various levels, efforts aimed at coordinating investigations internationally are seen as complementary rather than duplicative.

Performance

Public Reporting
Cases of online child sexual exploitation reported by the public to Cybertip.ca have been increasing for the past ten years, with a significant increase being noted in 2012-13. The National Strategy has contributed to this trend through activities aimed at enhancing public awareness and stimulating public reporting (e.g. awareness campaigns), as well as participation in high-profile investigations with provincial, municipal and international law enforcement agencies. It is likely that other factors, activities and actors outside of the National Strategy are also impacting general public awareness and reporting.

Coordinated approach
The National Strategy aimed to put in place a nationally coordinated approach to online child sexual exploitation investigations through centralized points of contact for public reporting (Cybertip.ca) and investigations (NCECC), as well as through other forms of law enforcement support. The evaluation found that the National Strategy has contributed to this outcome, but that gaps remain.

Canadian law enforcement agencies noted that while NCECC investigative packages generally offer useful information, delays in receiving packages have an adverse impact on the ability to conduct investigations in a timely manner. Delays were attributed to resource or staffing issues, an increase in the volume of reports, and backlog or operational issues. International law enforcement agencies find NCECC packages timely, accurate and complete. Cybertip.ca's triage function helped reduce Canadian law enforcement's processing burden and the reports provided have been timely and comprehensive. However, building on the positive work initiated through the new National Strategy working committee, closer cooperation is needed between Cybertip.ca and NCECC, and an examination is also warranted to determine how Cybertip.ca reports can best support NCECC's investigative work. Furthermore, the overall coordination and investigative process could benefit from a more formal and consistent feedback mechanism between Cybertip.ca, NCECC and Canadian law enforcement agencies regarding the status and result of investigations.

The National Strategy continues to deliver key benefits with respect to enhancing investigative coordination and supporting law enforcement agencies. Cybertip.ca supported law enforcement agencies with assistance and information for investigations. NCECC is seen to be an appropriate body for coordinating major national investigations and continues to play a critical role in facilitating the international component of investigations, despite concerns about capacity, which may potentially hinder efforts towards a nationally coordinated approach. Favourable views were held about NCECC training and assistance to law enforcement agencies, such as the categorization of child pornography material, victim identification and other operational support. Information technology systems continue to present a challenge to coordination efforts under the National Strategy, and challenges remain with regards to the establishment of an effective online child sexual exploitation tracking system for law enforcement agencies in Canada.

Supporting Children, Families and their Communities in Preventing Online Child Sexual Exploitation
The National Strategy has supported children, families and their communities through the education activities of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. Materials developed by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection are widely distributed and referenced by law enforcement agencies and others (e.g. educators) in presentations and school programs. The Canadian Centre for Child Protection also delivered numerous awareness and education activities. Some of their educational programs report successful findings with regards to quality, usefulness and affecting change among participating organizations. Through these activities, it is likely that the Canadian Centre for Child Protection has contributed to enhancing awareness, encouraging reporting and educating parents, teachers and children about the risks of online child sexual exploitation, despite impact not being quantified and other factors also contributing to general awareness among Canadians. Evidence also shows that public awareness campaigns and publicity around enforcement actions routinely generate strong interest from the public in obtaining information and educational programs related to child sexual exploitation, which also suggests an enhanced level of awareness. Nonetheless, due to the evolving nature of online child sexual exploitation, there are still opportunities to increase public awareness, education and prevention.

Partnerships and Other Activities Supporting a National Approach
The National Strategy continues to support partnerships with national and international stakeholders, the private sector, the non-profit sector, and law enforcement counterparts that are important to achieving successful outcomes. These partnerships support investigative capacity building and/or awareness and education efforts and include training, knowledge and resource exchanges, workshops and national conferences.

Enhanced Protection of Children from Online Child Sexual Exploitation
The evaluation shows that efforts by National Strategy partners have contributed to the enhanced protection of children from sexual exploitation on the Internet. The Canadian Centre for Child Protection contributed through triaging tips, processing reports for investigation by law enforcement agencies, identifying Websites containing child pornography and through their outreach activities and materials. NCECC contributed by preparing investigative packages, coordinating national and international major cases, providing investigative support as well as investigative training. Several high profile cases leading to the rescue of victims and the arrest of suspects illustrate the contribution of the National Strategy.

Informing Policy and Legislative Development
The National Strategy is seen as an important instrument with activities that enhance the body of knowledge of online child sexual exploitation through research, reports and analysis. Studies have helped inform policy development; however, further and better integrated research is needed to guide policy, legislative changes, law enforcement approaches, and prevention and treatment strategies. The evaluation notes that, in exercising its leadership role, PS should explore opportunities for greater synergy and collaboration and involve a broader base of stakeholders to enhance the identification of policy and legislative issues and to develop a federal vision on Internet child sexual exploitation. This issue crosses over into several other related policy areas (e.g. human trafficking, cybercrime, cyberbullying). There is a need to strategically position child sexual exploitation to respond to political priorities and to ensure accountability.

Horizontal Governance and Performance Measurement
There is opportunity to strengthen overall coordination and governance of the Strategy. There have been improvements since a more formal committee was put in place in April 2013, bringing together PS, NCECC and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection. There are still challenges related to the availability of information and information sharing between partners. Key areas to address in the overall coordination of the Strategy include increased clarity and communication of roles and responsibilities of the various Strategy partners, stronger engagement of and closer partnerships with provincial stakeholders, and enhanced coordination between public awareness activities and operational response. Strategy activities should be guided by and aligned with a federal agenda. Finally, as identified in the previous evaluation, gaps remain related to performance measurement. The implementation of the performance measurement strategy, developed in 2013, will be instrumental in monitoring and gauging the performance related to each of the Strategy's expected outcomes.

Efficiency and Economy
Research indicates that sexual abuse of children results in very high costs to society over the long-term. This suggests that investments of public funds to combat such crimes, especially those involving sexual abuse, could have large economic benefits, potentially reaching several billion dollars annually.

PS demonstrated effective use of resources in managing the Contribution Program, and its funding recipient, C3P, also seems to be efficiently delivering activities and producing deliverables, both in terms of triage and educational material. The combination of increased demand for NCECC services, coupled with issues related to timeliness and a backlog have challenged NCECC efficiency in recent years. It should be noted that measures of efficiency do not reflect the increasing complexity of investigations.

In terms of use of allocated resources, PS and Justice generally expended allocations intended to be spent on National Strategy activities within expected limits, while RCMP expenditures fell short of their allocations by an average of 26% per year. This situation was also noted in the previous evaluation. Although over the course of the evaluation period, the amount lapsed has decreased to 18% in 2012-13.

Recommendations

The Internal Audit and Evaluation Directorate recommends that PS, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Justice, implement the following:

  1. PS should examine opportunities to enhance its leadership, governance and horizontal coordination efforts, in collaboration with RCMP and Justice as appropriate, to align with the government's policy direction and federal vision for the National Strategy.
  2. PS and RCMP should examine current process to identify potential causes to NCECC's difficulty in pursuing Cybertip.ca reports, and take corrective actions deemed necessary.
  3. The RCMP should examine the causes to the lack of timeliness of NCECC services. This could involve a mapping of processes within NCECC and between NCECC, Cybertip.ca and/or law enforcement agencies and the examination of resource use and allocation of funding intended to address online child sexual exploitation. PS should facilitate Cybertip.ca's involvement as required.
  4. The RCMP should work with its national and international police partners in terms of implementing a technological solution as an alternative to CETS in order to meet the needs of law enforcement users to facilitate national coordination of child sexual exploitation investigations, information and intelligence sharing and avoid duplication.
  5. All Strategy partners should proactively collect and report performance information as laid out in the Performance Measurement Strategy, including the results of prevention activities and enforcement actions. Stronger engagement of provincial/municipal law enforcement agencies is required to collect information.

Management Response and Action Plan

Strategy partners accept all recommendations and will implement an action plan

1. Introduction

This is the Public Safety Canada (PS) 2013-14 Evaluation of the National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet (herein referred to as the National Strategy or simply the Strategy). This evaluation provides Canadians, parliamentarians, Ministers, central agencies, and the Deputy Minister of Public Safety with an evidence-based, neutral assessment of the relevance and performance (effectiveness, efficiency and economy) of this federal government horizontal initiative.

2. Profile

2.1 Background

The exploitation of children, particularly sexual exploitation, is not a new phenomenon. However, the advent of the Internet has considerably facilitated such criminal behaviour, changing the way child sexual exploitation offences are committed, investigated and prosecuted, as well as the volume of these offences. Investigations into Internet-based child sexual exploitation are complex and often international in scope. Indeed, the Internet and related online technologies can provide borderless and easy access to large quantities of electronically available images, videos and audio recordings of children being sexually exploited.

The National Strategy was launched on April 1, 2004 as a horizontal initiative bringing together Public Safety Canada (PS), the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and Industry CanadaFootnote 1 to provide a comprehensive, coordinated approach to enhancing the protection of children on the Internet and pursuing those who use technology to prey on them. In February 2009, the National Strategy was renewed and allocated approximately $8 million per year in ongoing funding. Also at this time, PS created the Contribution Program to Combat Child Sexual Exploitation and Human Trafficking (herein, the Contribution Program) to support initiatives, research, partnership building, projects and programs to advance efforts to combat online child sexual exploitation and human trafficking. The 2007 Federal Budget had also allocated ongoing funding of $6 million per year to advance efforts to combat child sexual exploitation and human traffickingFootnote 2. Justice Canada started receiving funding in 2007 to provide training, legal advice and support to National Strategy partners.

2.2 Objectives of the National Strategy

Program objectives for the 2009 to 2014 period included:

2.3 Federal PartnersFootnote 3

Public Safety Canada

PS is the lead department for the National Strategy, and is responsible for:

As a PS contribution recipient, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection takes part in the National Strategy by operating the national tipline Cybertip.ca and by developing and distributing public awareness and educational material to various target groups in Canada. For the purpose of the evaluation, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection was considered a Strategy partner. Throughout this report, “Cybertip.ca” is used when referring to the national tipline, while “C3P” designates the Canadian Centre for Child Protection in relation to its other activities such as public awareness and education.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

As part of the National Strategy, the RCMP is responsible for disseminating information and intelligence on national and international online child sexual exploitation cases. These cases are very complex as they are often multi-jurisdictional, involve several suspects, embody a significant amount of technological evidence, and can include numerous victims. The RCMP has the ability to respond immediately to a child at risk in Canada or internationally. The RCMP mandate in this area is to reduce the vulnerability of children to Internet-facilitated sexual exploitation by identifying victimized children, investigating and assisting in the prosecution of sexual offenders; and, strengthening the capacity of municipal, territorial, provincial, federal and international police agencies through training, operational research, and investigative support. .

The activities are carried out by the Canadian Police Centre for Missing and Exploited Children/Behavioural Science Branch (CPCMEC/BSB), more specifically the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre (NCECC) and other units providing victim identification support, specialized training and research services. For the purpose of this evaluation report, “NCECC” is used to designate all activities of these units funded as part of the National Strategy.

Department of Justice

Justice Canada received ongoing support for one full time equivalent to provide for training, legal advice and support to federal partners of the National Strategy. Justice Canada liaises with Strategy partners and reviews legislation to ensure it remains representative of the environment.

2.4 Resources

Table 1 illustrates the ongoing yearly funding for each federal organization that delivered Strategy activities from 2008-09 to 2012-13.


Table 1: Ongoing Yearly Funding Allocation
($ million)*
PS $0.5M
Contribution Funding $1.9M
RCMP $7.9M
Justice $0.2M
Total $10.5M

* Figures are net amounts and do not include amounts for Employee Benefits Plan, Public Works and Government Services Canada accommodations, or internal services charges.

2.5 Logic Model

The logic model presented in Figure 1 is a visual representation that links what a program is funded to do (activities) with what the program produces (outputs) and what the program intends to achieve (outcomes). It also provides the basis for developing the evaluation matrix, which gave the evaluation team a roadmap for conducting this evaluation. Highlighted items indicate the focus of the evaluation.

Figure 1
Image Description

The Strategy logic model has 4 components (objectives): Law enforcement capacity building; Law enforcement operations; Public reporting; and Knowledge and awareness building.

The following describes activities and outputs for Law enforcement capacity building:
Activity A: legislation and policy (RCMP, PS, JUS) leads to output 1: legislative and policy changes.
Activity B: law enforcement partnerships and networks (RCMP, PS, C3P) leads to output 2: agreements and information sharing.
Activity C: training and awareness (RCMP, PS, JUS, C3P) leads to output 3: training materials and sessions.
Activity D: technology infrastructure (RCMP) leads to output 4: image database, specialized tools & software.

The following describes activities and outputs for Law enforcement operations:
Activity E: manage cases (RCMP) and activity F: provide investigative support (RCMP) lead to output 5: investigative packages and support (intelligence & expertise).

The following describes activities and outputs for public reporting:
Activity G: facilitate public reporting (PS, C3P) leads to output 6: triaged reports to law enforcement. This output also contributes to activity F: provide investigative support (RCMP).

The following describes activities and outputs for Knowledge and awareness building:
Activity H: establish private sector partnerships (PS, C3P) leads to output 7: establish partnerships with stakeholders.
Activity I: conduct targeted research (RCMP, PS, C3P) leads to output 8: information on the nature of crimes.
Activity J: public awareness and education (RCMP, PS, C3P) leads to output 9: education & awareness materials & initiatives.
Note: Activities I and J include the human trafficking component under the Contribution Program to Combat Child Sexual Exploitation and Human Trafficking.

Output 1 (legislative and policy changes) leads to immediate outcome 1: informed legislative and policy development.

Output 2 (agreements and information sharing) and output 3 (training materials and sessions) lead to immediate outcome 2: increased knowledge of investigative challenges.

Output 4 (image database, specialized tools & software.) and output 5 (investigative packages and support) lead to immediate outcome 3: enhanced national and international law enforcement collaboration, intelligence and information sharing.

Immediate outcomes 2 and 3 contribute to one another.

Output 7 (establish partnerships with stakeholders) leads to immediate outcome 4: enhanced collaboration and partnerships.

Output 8 (information on the nature of crimes) and output 9 (education & awareness materials & initiatives) lead to immediate outcome 5: enhanced public awareness of online child sexual exploitation (includes the human trafficking component under the Contribution Program to Combat Child Sexual Exploitation and Human Trafficking); increased reporting and enhanced law enforcement triage efficiencies.

Immediate outcomes 4 and 5 contribute to one another.

Immediate outcomes 1, 2 and 3 contribute to the following intermediate outcome: Coordinated and comprehensive investigations forwarded to law enforcement agency of jurisdiction.

Immediate outcomes 4 and 5 lead to the following intermediate outcome: supporting children, families and their communities in preventing online child sexual exploitation.

Intermediate outcomes lead to the following ultimate outcome: enhanced protection of children from online sexual exploitation.

The evaluation mainly focused on the following:
Output 6: triaged reports to law enforcement.
Output 7: establish partnerships with stakeholders.
Output 8: information on the nature of crimes.
Output 9: education & awareness materials & initiatives.
Immediate outcome 1: informed legislative and policy development.
Immediate outcome 4: enhanced collaboration and partnerships.
Immediate outcome 5: enhanced public awareness of online child sexual exploitation; increased reporting and enhanced law enforcement triage efficiencies.
Intermediate outcomes: coordinated and comprehensive investigations forwarded to law enforcement agency of jurisdiction; and supporting children, families and their communities in preventing online child sexual exploitation.
Ultimate outcome: enhanced protection of children from online sexual exploitation.

3. About The Evaluation

3.1 Objective

This evaluation supports:

3.2 Scope

The scope of the evaluation mainly covered the time period over the past five years (2008-2009 to 2012-2013), beginning after the previous evaluation was completed (dated July 2008). Some performance data from 2013-2014 (up to December 2013) was also assessed.

As required by the Treasury Board Policy on Evaluation, the evaluation determined the relevance of the Initiative: continued need; alignment with government priorities; and, consistency with federal roles and responsibilities. The evaluation also examined the performance of the Initiative: the achievement of expected outcomes; and, a demonstration of efficiency and economy.

3.3 Methodology

The evaluation was conducted in accordance with the Treasury Board Policy on Evaluation, the Directive on the Evaluation Function; the Standard on Evaluation for the Government of Canada; and the Guidance on the Governance and Management of Evaluations of Horizontal Initiatives. The evaluation was a goal-based, implicit design, and evaluators took into account the following factors in order to calibrate the evaluation effort, including the approach, scope, design and methods:

3.3.1 Evaluation Core Issues and Questions

As required by the Directive on the Evaluation Function, the following issue areas and evaluation questions were addressed in the evaluation:

Relevance

1. How has the National Strategy evolved to meet new or changing needs?

2.
a) To what extent does the National Strategyalign with the policy priorities of Government?
b) To what extent does the National Strategysupport the strategic outcomes of the partners?

3.
a) To what extent is the National Strategy aligned with federal government roles and responsibilities?
b) Does the National Strategy duplicate or overlap with other programs, policies or initiatives delivered by other stakeholders?

Performance—Effectiveness  

4. To what extent has the National Strategy achieved expected outcomes in terms of:
a) coordination of investigations (including law enforcement collaboration, intelligence and information sharing; knowledge and awareness among criminal justice partners; and triage function)
b) informing legislative and policy development
c) support to children, families and their communities in preventing online child sexual exploitation (including enhanced public awareness; increased public reporting; and partnerships)
d) protection of children from online sexual exploitation

5. To what extent does the horizontal approach contribute to or detract from the achievement of outcomes?

Performance—Efficiency and Economy

6. To what extent have National Strategy partners minimized the use of resources in realizing outputs and outcomes?

3.3.2 Lines of Evidence

The evaluation team used the following lines of evidence to conduct the evaluation: document review, interviews, and a review of performance and financial data. Each of these methods is described in more detail below.

Document Review

The document review included the following types of documents: reviews, evaluations, corporate, accountability and policy documents, inception documents, reports on plans and priorities, speeches from the Throne, and legislative documents, program documents (i.e. terms of reference, records of discussion and record of decisions). A list of documents reviewed is presented in Appendix A.

Literature Review

The literature review included publicly available research studies and reports to provide context on current trends and knowledge surrounding child sexual exploitation on the Internet. The documents reviewed are included as part of Appendix A.

Interviews

In total, 19 interviews were conducted. Interviewees included program representatives, C3P, law enforcement agencies in Canada (8) and abroad (3) and Internet Service Providers.

Review of Financial and Performance Information

An analysis of performance data included the examination of program output and outcome data, as well as evaluations conducted internally by C3P and final project reports from funded recipients. The financial analysis included the assessment of program budget and expenditure information and the cost to the federal government.

3.4 Limitations

The following section describes data limitations and how the evaluation team addressed these limitations.

3.5 Protocols

During the conduct of the evaluation, program representatives from PS, the RCMP and Justice Canada in collaboration with their respective evaluation units, assisted in the identification of key stakeholders and provided documentation and data to support the evaluation. Collaborative participation greatly enriched the evaluation process.

This report was submitted to evaluation representatives and program representatives (up to the Director General level) of each partner organization. The report was then sent to the responsible Program Heads (Assistant Deputy Minister level) for review and acceptance. A management response and action plan was prepared in response to the evaluation recommendations by each organization, where appropriate. These documents were submitted to Departmental Evaluation Committees, Deputy Heads and/or Heads of Evaluation for approval, before being presented for consideration and final approval by the Deputy Minister of Public Safety Canada.

4. Findings

4.1 Relevance

4.1.1 Need for the National Strategy

The evaluation examined the issue of continuing need from two perspectives: 1) whether online child sexual exploitation still persists and needs to be addressed; and 2) whether the need for the National Strategy persists and how the Strategy has evolved to adapt to new or changing trends.

Evidence demonstrates that there is a continued need to address the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet given its exponential growth. There are increasing trends in the number of reported offences, availability of materials due to emerging technologies and the severity of these criminal acts. The Internet has broadened the scope of child sexual exploitation by facilitating direct, anonymous contact between children and adults.Footnote 4 The NCECC reported in 2007 that thousands of new images or videos are put on the Internet every week and hundreds of thousands of searches for child sexual abuse images are performed daily.Footnote 5 The general view from interviewees is that there is a substantial increase in child sexual exploitation on the Internet, demonstrated by an increase in the number of reports/tips, files and investigations. However, as suggested by some, it is not known whether this increase is due to heightened attention on this issue over the past decade and efforts to detect and investigate or whether it is due to an actual increase in the incidence of cases. Nonetheless, reports from the public to Cybertip.ca have been increasing since the tipline was established in 2002. The NCECC has also seen an increase in the number of reports it received from international and national agencies (e.g. a 60% increase in the number of suspected child sexual exploitation reports and assistance requests from 2010-11 to 2012-13).

Interviewees agreed that the increase in reported cases of online child sexual exploitation is linked to the growth of Internet use and constantly evolving technologies, such as mobile devices. For example, from 2009-10 to 2011-12, Cybertip.ca registered a 214% increase in the number of reports concerning mobile devices.Footnote 6The effect of technology is twofold; on the one hand, new technologies provide law enforcement with more effective tools to track offenders. On the other hand, networks of offenders use increasingly secure methods to distribute child sexual abuse materials over the InternetFootnote 7(e.g. clouding, peer-to-peer networks, dark Web, Tor anonymity network, encryption software). Interviewees also noted the increase in the volume of seizures (offenders may have over a million child sexual abuse imagesFootnote 8). Accessing and processing all this potential evidence is a key challenge for law enforcement.

Research suggests that 13% to 19% of children and youth from the general population have had an experience of online sexual exploitation.Footnote 9 Child sexual exploitation victims, mostly girls, are increasingly younger and images are more violent.Footnote 10 In 82% of the images analyzed by Cybertip.ca in 2012, children are under 12 years of age (57% of those are under 8 years of age).Footnote 11 The number of images of “serious child abuse” quadrupled between 2003 and 2007.Footnote 12 Some study findings aim to demonstrate the link between viewing child pornography and offending and suggest that more than half of child pornography offenders either abuse or attempt to abuse children.Footnote 13 Offenders' compulsive Internet usage and online networks of abusers may fuel hands-on offending against children and young people.Footnote 14

The problem extends well beyond Canada's border. Troels Oerting, head of the European Cybercrime Centre at Europol, stated that “as technology further develops and previously under-connected parts of the world come online, we can expect to see new offenders, new victims, and new means of committing crimes against children”Footnote 15. Interviewees noted the challenges posed by child sex tourism and travelling child sex offenders as they seek out jurisdictions with less stringent laws or oversight. There seems to be an increasing number of international cases, and investigations are increasingly interlinked and complex. Interviewees explained that this trend is very much linked to the opportunities created by emerging technologies such as mobile Web and the increasing use of social media to exchange images.

One clear emerging trend noted by most interviewees was self-peer exploitation (sexting) and its link to cyberbullying. This problem is escalading as teens are heavy users of the Internet, social media and mobile devices. This type of activity has increased the burden on law enforcement (one interviewee noted that it can take up to half of investigative time) and therefore the need for greater screening and prioritization. It is also challenging as evidence of criminal activity may, in some cases, be less apparent. Sexualized child modeling was also noted as an increasing trend.

Evidence demonstrates that the need for the National Strategy persists to ensure national collaboration and a consistent national approach to broadly address child sexual exploitation on the Internet as well as cooperation with the international community. This is demonstrated by a need to centralize information and coordinate in key areas (i.e. investigations, awareness, research).

In its 2011 report on child sexual exploitation, the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights noted that “many initiatives to combat child sexual exploitation are carried out in isolation; and that programs are inconsistently available across the country and often lack the means to coordinate efforts or exchange information and best practices. Therefore, there is a need for the Government to work with provinces and territories to facilitate greater awareness and coordination of existing programs”.Footnote 16 This speaks to the need for a coordinated strategy, the role of the federal government and the way the Strategy complements work being undertaken in the provinces and territories.

The need to increase knowledge and awareness about online child sexual exploitation was frequently mentioned by interviewees. Respondents say that online child sexual exploitation needs to be addressed as a social issue, not simply a policing one. NCECC and C3P receive many requests for awareness presentations (from non-governmental organizations, international organizations). Between 2008-09 and 2012-13, C3P received more than 3,300 direct requests for educational material, Internet safety information, and referral services. Additionally, there were more than 200,000 downloads of educational material from Websites administered by C3P in 2011-12 and 2012-13. Education and prevention were also areas identified by the Standing Senate Committee for possible federal government involvement.

Law enforcement agencies were concerned that, as public awareness and reported cases increase, resourcing may become an issue. Another problem for law enforcement is accessing information about suspects, identifying children and preventing future abuse.Footnote 17 Therefore, interviewees stated the importance of continued work with Internet service providers.

There is also a need to improve data collection and research at a national level. The Senate Standing Committee pointed to a lack of data and statistics regarding the extent of the problem.Footnote 18 A few interviewees stressed that more research is needed to understand the underpinnings and causal factors surrounding online child sexual exploitation. Research is seen to be needed to guide policy, legislative changes, law enforcement approaches, and prevention and treatment strategies. The Committee recommended that a national databank of research and statistical information be developed in cooperation with key stakeholders and be made publicly accessible.

In terms of the Strategy's ability to adapt to new trends, many interviewees felt that the Strategy has been adapting and evolving to emerging trends while some say that it is slow to react and has not evolved much. Strategy partners are exploring ways to address new trends, for example through research. The Strategy seems to be flexible enough to adapt to new trends; however, there may be a need to revisit the current mandate as a number of areas of concern are expanding (e.g. travelling child sex offenders, self-peer exploitation or “sexting”, cyberbullying, sextortion, sexualized child modeling) that were not originally envisioned. Interviewees mentioned a few areas that could be addressed by the Strategy: more engagement with provinces and municipalities, sharing best practices, training for police officers and research on officer wellness.

Finally, the Canadian public is highly supportive of actions to address online child sexual exploitation. More than 90 percent of Canadians are concerned about the issue and it is ranked as one of the top three concerns for parents regarding children.Footnote 19

4.1.2 Alignment with Governmental Priorities

The evaluation sought to assess the degree of alignment of the National Strategy with federal government priorities and departmental strategic outcomes mainly through document review.

Over the past five years, the Government of Canada has consistently underlined the fight against child sexual exploitation as a priority. Speeches, official public documents, and press releases identify the fight against online child sexual exploitation as one of the main priorities for the Canadian government.

The 2013 Speech from the Throne stated that the Government of Canada will focus on “protecting the most vulnerable of all victims, our children” with emphasis on the non-consensual distribution of intimate images. In August 2013, the Prime Minister announced that the federal government would introduce tough new penalties for those convicted of sex offences involving children. On February 26, 2014, the Tougher Penalties for Child Predators Act was introduced by the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Justice. The Act included nine key measures designed to better protect children from a range of sexual offences and exploitation at home and abroad.

In recent years, the federal government has brought forward a number of legislative initiatives, such as Bill C-22, an Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service, received Royal Assent in March 2011. Service providers covered by the Act now have certain obligations to report online child pornography. Bill C-10, Safe Streets and Communities Act received Royal Assent in March 2012. It introduced comprehensive legislation, which included proposed reforms to the Criminal Code designed to protect children from sexual predators. Bill C-13, Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, was prompted by several high profile cases of cyberbullying. This proposed legislation (November 2013) would make the distribution of sexually explicit images without a person's consent a criminal offence.

The National Strategy is aligned with the departmental mandates of the federal Strategy partners. The 2013-14 PS Report on Plans and Priorities states that “Public Safety Canada will continue to implement the […] National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet, including in the area of Canadian travelling child sex offenders.” The 2012-13 RCMP Report on Plans and Priorities states that “particular focus will be directed at combating Internet-facilitated child sexual exploitation by building capacity for specialized investigative technologies, victim identification, international training, and facilitating intelligence and information sharing between Canadian and international police agencies.” From 2010 to 2014, the Department of Justice's Reports on Plans and Priorities stated that the department would support the passage of legislative initiatives to better protect children from sexual offenders.

4.1.3 Alignment with Federal Roles and Responsibilities

The evaluation sought evidence of accountability and authority to deliver the National Strategy to understand whether there is alignment with the federal role.

The National Strategy aligns with federal roles and responsibilities with regard to legislation. The Constitution Act, 1867, provides exclusive legislative authority to the federal government in all matters related to the criminal lawFootnote 20 whereas enforcing the Criminal Code is considered to be primarily the responsibility of provincesFootnote 21. In keeping with this division, provinces and territories are the primary leads with respect to investigations and prosecutions of online child sexual exploitation related offences.

The federal government has a broad role in the safety and security of Canadians. Initiatives such as the National Strategy help advance federal policy objectives and priorities.

Internet-facilitated child sexual exploitation is a result of the modern digital world and crosses many jurisdictions.Footnote 22 Jurisdictional limits on individual police forces, the division of investigative responsibility when crimes cross these jurisdictional lines, and constraints on funds and manpower limit the ability of any single police force to carry out complex investigations.Footnote 23 These investigations require the collaboration and coordination of many stakeholders within the public safety, justice and law enforcement communities in Canada and also internationally.

As the national police force, the RCMP mandate is multi-faceted. Provincial and municipal police forces often rely on the RCMP to provide highly specialized police support services. The work of NCECC under the National Strategy aligns with the functions of the RCMP's National Police Services, which are the largest and often sole provider of specialized investigational support services to over 500 law enforcement and criminal justice agencies across Canada. National Police Services include numerous centres of expertise, such as NCECC, providing support on identification services, technological/technical investigations and support, enhanced learning opportunities, and the collection and analysis of criminal information and intelligence.Footnote 24 The aim is to enable and sustain uniform access to information that supports public safety and the administration of justice.

The RCMP is also part of the PS Portfolio, reporting to the Minister of Public Safety. PS plays a key role in discharging the Government's fundamental responsibility for the safety and security of its citizens. Under the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Act, the Minister is responsible for exercising national leadership relating to public safety and, as part of its Portfolio coordination and leadership duties, for coordinating the activities of PS Portfolio agencies and establishing strategic priorities relating to public safety for those organizations. The Minister may also implement public safety programs, enter into contribution agreements and cooperate with provinces or other Canadian and international entities. The Department's work under the National Strategy is consistent with these functions.

Under the Department of Justice Act, the role of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General is to provide legal services to the federal government. The Attorney General of Canada shall advise the heads of the departments of the Government on all matters of law connected with these departments. Such matters would include online child sexual exploitation covered by the National Strategy.

Finally, the National Strategy supports the federal government's international obligations under the G8 Strategy to Protect Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet, the United Nations Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography and the Global Alliance Against Child Sexual Abuse Online.

4.1.4 Complementarity/Duplication of Effort

The evaluation sought to determine whether the efforts of the National Strategy are duplicated or complemented by other initiatives, through interviews and document review.

Most provinces have implemented specific activities or measures to address online child sexual exploitation.Footnote 25 Some provinces, such as Ontario and Manitoba, have formal comprehensive provincial strategies. Provincial efforts largely focus on public awareness, education and prevention; expanding police capacity; and creating partnerships with community organizations and government agencies. Most provinces have dedicated provincial or municipal child sexual exploitation investigative units, referred to as Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) units. At least one province has specialized Crown prosecutors for this type of cases.

Some non-government organizations, other than C3P, are also active in raising public awareness and education. Organizations such as Beyond Borders and OneChild work to raise awareness and develop partnerships and/or conduct research to address online child sexual exploitation.

These strategies, whether undertaken by provinces or by non-governmental organizations, were seen by interviewees as complementing the federal strategy; the general view being that overlap may exist, but is deemed necessary or beneficial. This presents a risk to federal investments targeting the greatest need areas. C3P has partnerships with provinces, non-governmental organizations and private industry (e.g. Disney) to assist them in developing and tailoring educational products. PS participates on various Federal/Provincial/Territorial working groups and fora (e.g. Coordinating Committee of Senior Officials, Criminal Justice), which provides the opportunity to find synergies and avoid duplication. Despite this, the PS program noted that while it is aware that provinces are doing work in this area; they have limited knowledge on specific activities undertaken. The Strategy would benefit from gaining a better understanding of the various provincial and territorial initiatives in order to guide federal involvement in complementing these different initiatives. This would also be consistent with the Standing Senate Committee findings highlighting the need for better national coordination.

From an enforcement perspective, interviewees stated that the Strategy provides a central point of contact for investigations. Without a centralized coordinated approach, it was suggested that the system in Canada would be disparate. Despite the different organizations involved at various levels, efforts aimed at coordinating investigations internationally are seen as complementary rather than duplicative.

4.2 Performance—Effectiveness

In order to assess the extent to which the National Strategy is achieving the performance related outcomes, the evaluation team examined different lines of evidence including: documents, reports and data provided by the Strategy partners as well as qualitative input from interviewees. The following sections present the key findings for the main outcomes that were the focus of this evaluation.

4.2.1 Public Reporting

An immediate outcome of the National Strategy is to increase public reporting of child sexual exploitation activity on the Internet. In this regard, C3P plays a major role in generating awareness and educating the public about online child sexual exploitation and encouraging public reporting by providing a reporting mechanism through the Cybertip.ca tipline.

Over the five-year evaluation period, C3P data indicate that a total of 60,762 suspected casesFootnote 26 of child sexual exploitation were reported by the public to Cybertip.ca, which represents a significant increase (143%) from the previous evaluation period. The vast majority of cases were child pornography casesFootnote 27 (95%), while the remaining cases included a mix of child luring, child sex tourism, child prostitution, child trafficking and other offences.

Over this same 5-year period, the number of reports from the public increased each year, by an average of 9% between 2007-08 and 2011-12Footnote 28, followed by a dramatic rise of 162% in 2012‑13 (from 10,101 to 26,507 reports). Cybertip.ca attributes this increase to several factors, including: growing awareness of Cybertip.ca among the public and law enforcement, and more reporting from international hotlines and Web service providers.

Text
Image Description

The graph shows the suspected cases reported to Cybertip.ca by fiscal year: in 2008-2009 7,590 cases reported; in 2009-2010, 7,913 cases reported; in 2010-2011, 8,651 cases reported; in 2011-2012, 10,101 cases reported; and in 2012-2013, 26,507 cases reported.

C3P also conducted 15 awareness campaignsFootnote 29 aimed at raising awareness and stimulating public reporting. Data provided by C3P indicate an increase in reporting during or in the immediate aftermath of each campaign. For example, the Help These Kids campaign generated a 10% increase in reporting, while two separate I Reported It campaigns generated a 50% and a 42% increase respectively, during or immediately following these awareness activities. It is important to note that these campaigns are not solely funded by the National Strategy (i.e. other public and private organizations also provide funding); therefore results should not be fully attributed to the Strategy.

Data and interviewee perceptions suggest that public reporting is also impacted by publicity surrounding high-profile and widely publicized enforcement actions. For example, in the week following the announcement of the results of Project SpadeFootnote 30 in November 2013, C3P experienced a 48% increase in reports submitted by the public and a 144% increase in reports submitted with information on a child victim and/or suspect.

4.2.2 Coordinated Approach to Online Child Sexual Exploitation Investigations

The National Strategy recognizes that a comprehensive and coordinated effort by all partners and stakeholders is needed to successfully combat Internet-based child sexual exploitation. A coordinated approach is one that embraces many aspects of the Strategy, such as triage and reports, investigations, support to law enforcement agencies, training and IT infrastructure. Therefore, the evaluation examined these aspects in assessing the establishment of a coordinated approach to online child sexual exploitation investigations in Canada.

Cybertip.ca triage and reports

Cybertip.ca processes all tips received from the public to determine potential illegal content or activity and to provide adequate classification of incidents contained in the reports (a report may contain several incidents). Once reviewed and classified, those reports that are deemed to contain illegal content are passed along by Cybertip.ca to the appropriate law enforcement jurisdiction in Canada, to NCECC or to another international tipline. Those reports wherein the jurisdiction is unknown or where complexity is greater, e.g. involving multiple jurisdictions, are sent to the NCECC. These cases require significant investigative time by the NCECC due to their increased complexity.

Data provided by Cybertip.ca shows that 55% of all reports received by the tipline involve legal content or require an educational response, and therefore are not passed along to law enforcement agencies. Of the remaining 45%, about half is sent to Canadian law enforcement agencies, including NCECC, while the other half is sent to international tiplines. In concrete terms, of the 60,762 reports received by Cybertip.ca from 2008-09 to 2012-13, approximately 20% (11,587 reports) were forwardedFootnote 31 to law enforcement agencies in Canada, mostly to NCECC. Some triaging examples are provided in Appendix B. These demonstrate how Cybertip.ca's triage function helped reduce law enforcement's processing burden by adequately identifying the lead law enforcement agency or by forwarding reports to NCECC for further assessment and determination of appropriate law enforcement of jurisdiction.

Interviewees consider Cybertip.ca's triage function to be both effective and efficient. Interviewees generally give Cybertip.ca good marks for triage performance, relevant analysis and risk assessment. The centralized function is also described as saving time and money resulting in more efficient investigations. Cybertip.ca reports contain, as available, information about the incident (e.g. type, date, location, etc.), the victim and suspect, the Website, as well as supplemental information (e.g. gleaned from additional open source online searches). Information from the tipster was seen to be paramount to supporting investigations. Respondents consider reports by Cybertip.ca to be both timely and comprehensive. It was noted, for example, that reports are of excellent quality and usually sent within 48 hours (as they do not require in-depth police investigation). However, some interviewees said that Cybertip.ca reports can be lengthy or repetitive, which makes processing these reports time consuming. Cybertip.ca was aware of these concerns and presented evidence demonstrating it has taken steps to address them (e.g. streamlining processes and reports) through its Law Enforcement Advisory Committee.

The evaluation also found that NCECC is having difficulty actionningFootnote 32 a high percentage of files incoming from Cybertip.ca. A detailed case review to determine the source and causes of this issue could not be completed as part of this evaluation. However, some possible explanations were put forward, one of them being that NCECC is unable to action files in the absence of actual child pornography pictures or videos as supporting evidence, which Cybertip.ca cannot lawfully store and forward. This issue was subject to consultation and a decision was made to maintain Cybertip.ca's current status in relation to storing and forwarding evidence. NCECC noted that information received from Cybertip.ca that does not generate an active investigation is bulk filed for intelligence purposes, divided by location, and sent to that particular local, provincial, or international law enforcement agency for their attention.

Additionally, URLs leading to child pornography material change rapidly from the time they are analyzed by Cybertip.ca and the time they are processed by NCECC; therefore, these URLs would become inactive between that time. It is unclear at what point in the process this issue arises. Cybertip.ca average processing times for 2012-13 range from 4 minutes to 302 minutes (approximately 5 hours), based on the priority of the file and the availability of information. Interviewees stated that C3P and NCECC need to find ways to work better together within these existing legal constraints. To this end, a Working Committee chaired by PS was established in April 2013 and “things are moving forward over the last six months”. Given that these findings vary considerably from the views expressed by other Canadian law enforcements agencies, the Strategy would benefit from a deeper examination into this issue.

Furthermore, it was suggested that the coordination and investigative process could benefit from a more formal and consistent feedback mechanism regarding the status and result of investigations, which would keep NCECC, Cybertip.ca and law enforcement agencies informed about the progress, conclusion and outcome of investigations.

NCECC triage and investigative packages

As the national law enforcement coordination center, the NCECC receives reportsFootnote 33 from the Cybertip.ca, as well as reports and requests for assistanceFootnote 34 from law enforcement agencies in Canada, the U.S.Footnote 35 and other countries. The number of suspected child sexual exploitation reports and assistance requests received by NCECC increased by 60% between 2010‑11 and 2012‑13.

Figure 3
Image Description

The graph shows reports and assistance requests received by NCECC by fiscal year. In 2010-2011, 5,469; in 2011-2012, 6,428; and in 2012-2013, 8,726.

Case complexity and the increased volume of reports have an impact on NCECC's ability to assign and process reports in a timely manner. For example, technological advancements allow users to evade detection, encryption causes delays, and ISPs data retention times impact the securing of evidence. Immediately upon review of each report, a risk assessment is completed to assign priority files. Based on RCMP data, from April 2010 to July 2013, roughly one third (36%) of NCECC files were assigned and concluded within 100 days; approximately 50% of files were processed between 100 and 300 days. Over the same period, NCECC had a backlog of 1,725 unconcluded files, most of these having been at the NCECC between 31 and 200 days.

The reports deemed to be further actionable by the NCECC are converted into investigative packages, one of the key outputs of NCECC Operations, and subsequently forwarded to law enforcement agencies in Canada or internationally. The volume of these investigational packages has decreased over the last three years by 30% (from 755 to 533). Essentially this illustrates that, while requests for services have actually been increasing, the number of investigative packages (outputs) produced showed a declining trend. NCECC notes that this reflects improved operational processing through the consolidation of multiple files regarding a particular subject into a single package, or files targeting multiple suspects. This reflects significant effort by NCECC to streamline the development of packages and to bulk files to enhance efficiency. It should also be noted that all investigative packages are not “considered equal” (i.e. preparation of packages for smaller, less complex cases requires a lower level of effort while packages for larger cases require an increased amount of work). For example, in a major project (nationally or internationally) the NCECC produces one investigative main package. This package will then remain open allowing for other related reports to be added to the main file.

Perspectives among respondents regarding the usefulness of NCECC investigative packages differ significantly between Canadian and international agencies. Most law enforcement agencies from Canada raised concerns with regards to the timeliness of NCECC packages, with delays being attributed to resource or staffing issues, volume, persistent backlog or operational issues. Delays in receiving investigative packages from NCECC are seen to have an adverse impact on law enforcement agencies' ability to conduct investigations in a timely manner. Respondents otherwise expressed generally positive views with the information contained in NCECC investigative packages. Some issues were identified regarding accuracy of information; however, these did not seem to be a general representation of all NCECC files. On the other hand, views among international law enforcement agencies tend to be favourable. These interviewees are satisfied with the packages they receive from NCECC, finding them to be timely, accurate and complete. The divergence of perspectives among domestic versus international law enforcement agencies may be due to the different roles played by these agencies and by their expectations of NCECC.

Another key coordination role from NCECC is requesting information from Internet service providers where that information is not available and required for investigations. To this end, a Law Enforcement RequestFootnote 36 is sent to Internet service providers to obtain a suspect's customer name and address. The information is then passed along to the appropriate law enforcement jurisdiction for investigation. This information is critical and must be requested and obtained quickly, especially since the retention period varies across companies and ranges from as little as seven days up to two years. Between 2010-11 and 2012-13, the volume of requests sent to Internet service providers decreased by 55% (from 690 to 311), while the average response time from Internet service providers improved, going from 11.1 days to 4.43 days.

Support to Law Enforcement Agencies

According to interviewees, the National Strategy is considered to be delivering key benefits with respect to enhancing investigative coordination and support to law enforcement agencies. In terms of overall coordination, the Strategy is cited as a benefit for coordinating investigations nationally and internationally. Respondents state that the Strategy fills an important gap and that both Cybertip.ca and NCECC “are major players in fighting child pornography crime”.

NCECC is seen to be an appropriate body for coordinating major national investigations. For example, NCECC led three major national projects since 2009-10. Respondents cited specific examples of NCECC case coordination including three major projects: Snapshot IFootnote 37 , Snapshot IIFootnote 38 and Project SalvoFootnote 39. Case summaries show that a great number of law enforcement agencies (between 9 and 35) were involved in these cases, which are indicative of coordination work required from NCECC.

Interviewees noted that NCECC plays a critical role in facilitating the international component of investigations and that international coordination is complex and resource intensive. As an example, following his deportation from Cambodia, Canadian Daniel Lavigne was arrested for alleged child sexual offences committed in Canada. Many partners were involved in the investigation led by NCECC, including Passport Canada, the Ontario Provincial Police, the Canada Border Services Agency, the Cambodian National Police, the Hong Kong Police Department, RCMP Liaison Officers in Bangkok and Hong Kong, and a non‑governmental organization in Cambodia.

Respondents stated that NCECC understands international protocols and agreements pertinent to investigations. However, interviewees raised questions about NCECC's current capacity to coordinate cases in a timely and effective manner. These concerns have caused two of the Canadian law enforcement agencies interviewed to contact other national and international agencies directly rather than going through NCECC. This may hinder efforts towards a centralized and nationally coordinated approach.

Interviewees also closely associate NCECC's investigative support with training, and they express mainly favourable views regarding training initiatives. NCECC provided 32 training sessions (seven different courses) between 2008-09 and 2012-13 and trained 592 participants. Sessions provided training on various investigative tools (e.g. the Child Exploitation Tracking System, victim identification digital imaging) and other Internet child sexual exploitation subject matter. No data were available on the impact of these courses. By way of example, NCECC provided training on peer-to-peer investigations to more than 45 investigators in Quebec in January 2013. Projet Mainmise, a child sexual investigation announced in November 2013 by the Sûreté du Québec in which 28 individuals were arrested, mainly involved peer-to-peer investigative work across multiple jurisdictions.

Some law enforcement representatives expressed concerns that access to training and annual subject matter expert conferences is being curtailed due to budget and travel constraints even though they say more training is needed to keep pace with new demands. More specialized training is also seen to be needed (victim identification, behavioural profiling, digital technology and covert operations).

Investigative support from NCECC to law enforcement agencies takes many other forms. For example, NCECC provided several law enforcement agencies (including le Service de police de la Ville de Montréal, RCMP Victoria and Toronto Police Service) with assistance on the categorization of significant quantities of seized child pornography material, forensics and the execution of search warrants, including on the major projects previously identified. Victim identification work was cited numerous times as beneficial to law enforcement agencies. NCECC also produced fact sheets on social media systems/fora (Omegle and 4Chan) being used by offenders to share images. These are designed to assist Canadian child sexual exploitation investigators and are developed based on operational and investigator needs and requirements. No information on the usefulness of these products was collected. Nonetheless, NCECC states that it has received requests from law enforcement agencies for other fact sheets, suggesting a certain degree of interest.

On the international front, NCECC is seen by interviewees to be providing excellent support and assistance to international investigations. One international respondent described NCECC as a “leading light” noting its contributions to victim identification and international training. For example, the RCMP developed a Victim Identification LaboratoryFootnote 40 to help locate and identify child victims who are depicted in sexual images. This portable tool is set up at conferences where police officers are able to securely view redacted child abuse crime scene photos from unsolved international cases in the hopes of providing new leads to investigators. Based on NCECC data, this tool provided hundreds of investigative leads and helped advance several national and international investigations so far.

Cybertip.ca also supported law enforcement agencies with assistance and information for investigations, for example, by providing information about specific service providers, Websites or URLs to law enforcement agencies.

Information Technology Systems and Tools

Specialized information technology systems and tools play an important role in supporting the work and coordination required for analysis and investigation of child sexual exploitation cases. One of the main systems sponsored by the National Strategy is the Child Exploitation Tracking System (CETS). Originally developed by Microsoft, in cooperation with the Toronto Police Service and other Canadian law enforcement agencies, CETS aimed to help investigators to identify suspects, and gather and share evidence and information across jurisdictions to support investigations, while avoiding duplicative work. NCECC was responsible for the roll-out of CETS as the national system for Canadian law enforcement agencies.

Most law enforcement agencies were critical of the tracking system, suggesting it had not lived up to expectations or achieved full functionality, and required law enforcement agencies to enter information that was already entered in other police systems. This finding is consistent with the two previous evaluations in 2006-07 and 2008-09, which also identified issues with the implementation of the Child Exploitation Tracking System. NCECC recognizes that there have been problems with the system and supports the idea of a single system that could be used by all law enforcement agencies. NCECC has been examining a new technological solution as well as potential new system providers to replace this system. However, a business case and implementation plan have not yet been developed to address the technological limitations of   the tracking system. NCECC stated a business case had not been required up to this point.

In the absence of a fully-functional Child Exploitation Tracking System, law enforcement agencies mentioned using a variety of other systems, mostly other police information tracking and case management systems. Lack of a fully operational centralized system might impede some law enforcement agencies from having access to the latest information regarding cases and there is a risk of duplication or missed opportunities. Canadian law enforcement agencies felt that a centralized system to coordinate work could help minimize the risk of duplication between NCECC and other law enforcement agencies.

A national image database was also intended to be created as a component of the Child Exploitation Tracking System to support the identification of victims. This database was created and is reportedly being used. However, given the above-noted challenges, some law enforcement agencies mentioned using other databases, including the Ontario Provincial Police's image database. This may create duplication and hinder efforts towards a nationally coordinated approach.

Law enforcement agencies also mentioned using several systems to categorize child sexual abuse images before being uploaded to the national database. NCECC does not impose a single tool; however, they are working with private sector companies to ensure compatibility of the various systems used by law enforcement and enhance functionalities. Currently, law enforcement agencies using certain systems are not able to upload material into and access material from the national database. NCECC is also working with law enforcement agencies to standardize the categories of images to ensure consistency.

Cybertip.ca uses a portal to securely transfer reports to appropriate law enforcement agencies. The portal also provides officers with a centralized tool to query a number of social networking sites, search engines and Web services in a single search. Cybertip.ca states that it has taken several measures to improve the portal in response to requests from various law enforcement agencies in Canada. Changes include the ability for a law enforcement agency to assign a report to another agency through this portal.

4.2.3 Supporting Children, Families and their Communities in Preventing Online Child Sexual Exploitation

An intermediate outcome of the National Strategy is to support children, families and their communities in preventing online child sexual exploitation. The evaluation team assessed this outcome by examining evidence of the development, distribution and impact of awareness and education material and programs, and reviewing child sexual exploitation projects funded under the PS Contribution Program to Combat Child Sexual Exploitation and Human Trafficking.

National Strategy funding supported C3P in developing and delivering child sexual exploitation awareness and education activities and material. It should be noted that these activities and products are also funded by other public and private organizations and, as a result, sole attribution of the results to the National Strategy cannot be made. Interviewees believe that awareness of child sexual exploitation issues has increased over the past five years, and that there has been “a shift in dialogue” in society as a whole on the subject. Respondents single out the activities of C3P in particular, mentioning that it has influenced this increase in awareness and that it is having an impact in encouraging reporting and in educating parents, teachers and children about the risks of online child sexual exploitation. However, direct attribution cannot be made.

Respondents expressed the view that C3P materials are widely distributed and used. It was noted, for example, that law enforcement agencies and others (e.g. educators) have used C3P educational and awareness materials in various ways (i.e. law enforcement agency presentations, school programs, referenced on government Websites). Organizations internationally also request C3P materials. These perceptions notwithstanding, some respondents felt that there is still a considerable lack of awareness and a need to do more in order to prevent online child sexual exploitation.

The evaluation team examined evidence of the impact of C3P's awareness and education activities through a wide variety of output and outcome measures provided by this organization. This evidence includes data regarding the volume of material distributed, the number page views and downloads on C3P Websites, the number of educational sessions, and the evaluation of C3P awareness programs. The three-step evaluation approach consisted of examining what deliverables were produced, how many individuals were reached, and what impact was achieved. Following is a summary of findings of activities undertaken over the evaluation period.

Figure 4
Image Description

The graph shows educational downloads by fiscal year. In 2008-2009, 86,907 downloads; in 2009-2010, 119,724 downloads; in 2010-2011, 142,012 downloads; in 2011-2012, 234,044 downloads; and in 2012-2013, 205,158 downloads.

C3P typically experiences an increase in interest among target audiences during and following its public awareness campaigns as measured by spikes in requests, page views and downloads. These spikes provide an indication as to the impact of a particular campaign. For example, the 3-month campaign Child Sexual Abuse—It is Your Business (2009) resulted in a 28% average increase in page views over the four months following the launch. Similarly, the two Stop Sex with Kids campaigns (2008 and 2010) generated a 134% and 40% overall increase in page views respectively within the first two months of the campaigns while the 2011 and 2013 Cybertip.ca Public Service Announcement campaigns resulted in an increase of 31% and 14% respectively in educational downloads, compared to the months immediately preceding the campaigns.

Enforcement actions also seem to generate public interest for information on child sexual exploitation. For example, in the week following the announcement of Project SpadeFootnote 49, C3P reported a 54% increase in traffic to the Cybertip.ca Website, a 208% increase in requests for information and a 120% increase in traffic to the Commit to Kids Website. This program is of particular interest in this case as a number of arrested individuals had close contact with children through their professional or volunteer work. Commit to KidsFootnote 50 is a program to help organizations create safe environments for children. It provides policies and strategies for reducing the risk of child sexual abuse, encouraging organizations to take an active role in protecting children in their care. C3P distributed approximately 15,000 kits over the last three years.

C3P's Commit to Kids Evaluation Report summarized findings from a small sample of organizationsFootnote 51 that received the program. The majority of directors and managers surveyed indicated that the Commit to Kids training would affect their future hiring policies and practices. Training increased participants' understanding of child sexual abuse, the grooming process used by offenders and their ability to identify high-risk situations. All directors and managers said that they would improve their organizations' Code of Conduct and felt that most elements of the program would be easy to implement.

In addition to these activities from C3P, the PS Contribution Program funded two projects aimed at supporting children, families and their communities in preventing online child sexual exploitation, namely, the Aboriginal Centered Community Expert Training (ACCET) programFootnote 52 and the Smart & Safe programFootnote 53. Reports of these two British Columbia based programs indicate that both programs were successful in meeting their objectives. There is opportunity for these results to be shared with key stakeholders in provinces and territories. Further details for these and other funded projects are presented in Appendix C.

4.2.4 Partnerships and Other Activities Supporting a National Approach

One of the immediate outcomes of the National Strategy is to enhance partnerships with other organizations and develop other supporting activities to combat Internet child sexual exploitation.

Interviewees stated that the National Strategy plays a role in fostering and maintaining partnerships with stakeholders and law enforcement counterparts that is important to achieving successful outcomes. NCECC and C3P have entered into numerous agreements (e.g. MOUs, partnership agreements) with international, federal, provincial, non‑governmental and private organizations. NCECC has also secured secondment assignmentsFootnote 54 with law enforcement agencies. These partnerships support investigative capacity, awareness and education and/or public reporting efforts. International partners, in particular, expressed their satisfaction with NCECC's contributions, noting that they received many tangible benefits from them. Additional information on partnership work is presented in Appendix D.

The National Strategy's efforts towards building sustainable partnerships are reflected in support provided to the Canadian Coalition against Internet Child Exploitation (CCAICE). C3P has played a lead role in the Coalition whose goal is to enhance collaboration with private sector stakeholders, law enforcement, and non-governmental organizations. The work of the Coalition was instrumental in the development of the Law Enforcement Request process, which assists law enforcement agencies in obtaining information from Internet Service Providers regarding investigations, and to the Cleanfeed Canada initiative which aims to identify and block child pornography URLs. It was noted that Coalition work has slowed down in recent years, since no meetings have taken place since 2010.

In response to the growing proliferation of child pornography material facilitated by the Internet, C3P established a Canadian Financial Coalition in an effort to tackle commercial Websites and those who profit from the commercial exploitation of children. The Coalition includes leading banks, credit card companies and third party payment companies and Internet Service Providers. Initial work on the Coalition has started but progress has been slowed down due to law enforcement concerns about the current capacity to conduct these types of investigations within the financial sector.

PS has also engaged in partnership activities to enhance collaboration between stakeholders. For example, PS organized a Workshop on Travelling Child Sex Offenders in March 2012. PS program representatives stated that it was the first time that a wide range of organizations concerned with and related to travelling child sex offender issues in Canada were able to convene to share case studies and research findings in order to more broadly understand the issue. As a result of this Workshop, PS created a document entitled Practical Guide for Law Enforcement and Prosecutors Investigating and Prosecuting Travelling Child Sex Offenders, and shared it with workshop participants.

Justice Canada provided training sessions on mandatory reporting and child sexual exploitation to law enforcement, provincial/territorial partners, C3P as well as industry stakeholders. No data were available on the exact number of courses, participation and impact.

4.2.5 Enhanced Protection of Children from Online Child Sexual Exploitation

The ultimate outcome of the National Strategy is to enhance protection of children from online child sexual exploitation. Evidence of the extent to which this objective is achieved was determined by examining the National Strategy's contribution to cases involving the arrest of suspects or rescue of victims (e.g. through coordinated cases), work related to victim identification and mechanisms restricting access to child pornography URLs. It is important to note that, while this data gives an indication of the impact of the National Strategy, it is not possible to draw a direct or definitive causal link from this evidence for the purpose of attribution. The results of these investigations cannot be solely attributed to the National Strategy, but rather shared with the provincial and municipal police forces that conducted the investigations, arrested individuals and rescued victims. Therefore, the evaluation aimed to highlight the National Strategy's contribution to these cases.

Overall, interviewee feedback supports the view that NCECC and C3P have contributed to the protection of children from Internet sexual exploitation. Interviewees based these views on NCECC's role in coordinating national and international major cases, in providing investigative support such as victim and suspect identification, image analysis and categorization and search warrant execution, as well as investigative training. Interviewees stated that C3P contributed mainly through triaging tips and forwarding reports to law enforcement agencies, in identifying Websites containing child pornography and through their outreach activities and materials.

The RCMP presented a selective sample of approximately 40 cases where NCECC provided assistance to Canadian or international law enforcement agencies since 2008. A review of these cases showed close cooperation on investigations with various law enforcement agencies in Canada and around the world (many with the United States, European countries and Thailand, and occasionally with Brazil, Mexico, Australia, Uganda, Haiti and Cambodia). Cases demonstrated how NCECC acted as the central point of contact for international law enforcement agencies to share intelligence on suspected cases, conducted specialized investigative work in support of law enforcement (e.g. image analysis for victim identification, online covert operations) and ensured appropriate liaison was made between law enforcement agencies both within Canada and internationally (e.g. by providing investigative packages). This work helped advance investigations that resulted, either in Canada or in relation to Canadian citizens, in the arrest of over 160 individuals and in the identification or rescue of over 50 victimsFootnote 55. Some examples are provided below and in Appendix E.

For its part, Cybertip.ca also relies on law enforcement agencies to notify them when arrests are made or children are rescued following investigations initiated by their reports. Between April 2008 and March 2013, Cybertip.ca was notified of 82 arrests and 78 children rescued from abusive situationsFootnote 56 based on reports it submitted.

It is likely that the numbers provided by both NCECC and Cybertip.ca are an underrepresentation of the actual number of arrests and children rescued, given that only a sample of cases were presented and feedback on the results of investigations is not routinely provided by law enforcement agencies. In this regard, the previous evaluation found that “NCECC should be more proactive in collecting and reporting performance information…including the number of arrests, the type and number of charges laid and sentences pronounced. More work needs to be done with the field level to enable NCECC to track this information.” Since that evaluation, NCECC has attempted to address this concern by providing a file disposition report form to law enforcement agencies; despite these efforts, the NCECC is still not routinely advised of the outcome of every case.

Interviewees mentioned several cases to demonstrate the contribution of the National Strategy. These cases relate to child pornography, child luring, and/or child sexual abuse offences. Notably, the following three cases, which resulted in the rescue of multiple victims and the arrest of many suspects, provide evidence of the nature and scope of the impact of the National Strategy.

Project Sanctuary (2009) was an international investigation initiated by the Toronto Police Service. NCECC became involved at the request of the Toronto Police Service and was able to distribute 25 investigational packages to national and international law enforcement agencies within 48 hours. Thus far, 57 men have been charged including 25 Canadians, 26 Americans, and 6 Europeans. Among those arrested were men who came from all walks of life, such as a priest, university professor, a child entertainer, and a repeat child sex offender. Twenty-five (25) children were rescued as a result, including 12 children in Canada.

Operation Snapshot II (2013), led by NCECC, was a coordinated investigation which aimed to identify and rescue child sexual exploitation victims and to target high-risk offenders who collect, possess and/or distribute child sexual exploitation material online. This project also includes a research component which will help law enforcement conduct more focused investigations based on the type of material being collected and shared by offenders on file-sharing networks (and the potential links between this material and contact offences). Thus far, Operation Snapshot I and II resulted in the rescue of ten (10) children and the arrest of 22 individualsFootnote 57. Millions of child sexual exploitation images were also seized. This operation involved federal, provincial and municipal police agencies from Atlantic Canada.

Project Spade (2013) was a three-year international investigation led by the Toronto Police Service involving the making and selling of child sexual exploitation videos and images over the Internet by a business operating in the Toronto area. The illegal operation involved individuals in Eastern Europe videotaping children being sexually abused and an individual in Canada who arranged for the editing and commercial distribution (to over 94 countries) of material. Cybertip.ca received numerous tips regarding the individual's Website and forwarded the information to appropriate law enforcement agencies. NCECC's assistance resulted in the dissemination of investigational packages both nationally (16 in eight provinces) and internationally (56). Furthermore, the case report indicates that NCECC provided additional assistance to Canadian law enforcement agencies, resulting in the identification of 116 targets spanning eight (8) provinces and 14 policing jurisdictions. NCECC and other members of the Ontario Provincial Strategy assisted the Toronto Police Service in cataloging millions of child sexual exploitation images and videos. NCECC also supported the Toronto Police Service in providing intelligence to over 50 countries. Project Spade resulted in the rescue of 386 children from child sexual exploitation, including 24 Canadian children, and the arrest of 348 people around the world, including 108 Canadians.

The National Strategy also contributed to the identification of victims and suspects. RCMP data shows that a total of 202 victims and 1,068 suspects were identified by NCECC from 2010-11 to 2012‑13. Through NCECC, Canada's contribution to the International Child Sexual Exploitation database was seen by international interviewees to be significant. The number of victims and offenders uploaded by Canada (through NCECC) into the international database since its creation ranks among the top 3 in the world in terms of country contribution.

Another way of contributing to the protection of children consists in blocking access to child pornography Websites hosted outside CanadaFootnote 58. Led by Cybertip.ca, Cleanfeed CanadaFootnote 59 is a mechanism used for this purpose. From 2008-09 to 2012-13, a total of 27,901 URLsFootnote 60 were added to the Cleanfeed Canada list of blocked sites.

4.2.6 Informing Policy and Legislative Development and Change

Interviewee perceptions reveal that the National Strategy is seen as an important instrument to provide focus around the issue of child sexual abuse. Interviewees believed that Strategy activities enhanced the body of knowledge and understanding on the global nature of online child sexual exploitation, more specifically through C3P and NCECC research, reports and analysis. Several research studiesFootnote 61 were produced:

Knowledge from these studies helps corroborate other research findings and contributes to informing policy development activities. Overall, respondents suggest that more research is also needed to understand the underpinnings and contributing factors surrounding child sexual exploitation. Research is seen to be needed to further guide policy, legislative changes, law enforcement approaches, and prevention and treatment strategies:

As the lead department for the National Strategy, PS provided input on a variety of issues, including the creation of the mandatory reporting legislation; the legislation and amendments to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and the National Sex Offender Registry. Additionally, in order to advance police and justice system responses to this emerging issue of concern, an Interdepartmental Working Group was established in 2010. This Working Group, co-led by the RCMP and PS, provides a forum for information sharing and coordination on the issue of travelling child sex offenders and continues to meet and serve as a focal point for information sharing among a growing number of partners.

In relation to legislative development, Justice's key deliverable was the enactment of An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service, which was passed in 2011. [*].

Some interviewee perceptions suggest that more could be done to help identify policy and legislative issues. Examples presented include holding larger meetings and roundtable discussions with more stakeholders, including law enforcement agencies beyond NCECC, especially Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) units, Internet service providers, other federal government organizations involved in this policy area and provincial governments. These perspectives would help the federal government identify policy and legislative issues and develop its own federal perspective and a federal vision on Internet child sexual exploitation. This aligns with findings from the previous evaluation, which stated that PS should “expand its leadership efforts…The strategic role of PS should be continued and strongly supported in order for the Strategy to get 'ahead of the curve' on the issue of Internet child sexual exploitation”.

The issue of online child sexual exploitation was seen as crossing over into several other related policy areas (e.g. human trafficking, cybercrime, cyberbullying). In recent years, policy and criminal law policy issues related to child sexual exploitation were discussed as required through the FPT Coordinating Committee of Senior Officials (CCSO), Criminal Justice, Cybercrime Working Group. Although not specifically focused on child sexual exploitation, this body was seen as sufficient and appropriate to address issues as they come up. Given the potential crossover between various policy areas, there is a risk that child sexual exploitation is only discussed within the context of broader policy issues and no ownership is taken specifically on this particular issue. This suggests that strategic positioning of child sexual exploitation is important to respond to political priorities (as environment changes) and in relation to other policy issues and areas. Within PS, the new Portfolio Director General Policy Committee and the ADM-level Policy Committee may be used in this regard.

4.2.7 Horizontal Coordination and Governance; and Performance Measurement

PS is responsible for providing national coordination and oversight for the Strategy, and reinforcing research and training capacity pertaining to online child sexual exploitation. Overall coordination and governance was mostly done, in previous years, on an ad hoc and as needed basis, and rather informally (e.g. meetings, communications and interactions were taking place as required). Furthermore, relationship tensions between some partners were noted as barriers and challenges to effective program delivery.  

Improvements were noted in overall coordination since a working committee was put in place in April 2013, bringing together PS, NCECC and C3P. Several meetings have taken place and are deemed to be useful. Interviewees found that a more formal body was also considered appropriate for Strategy partners in raising and discussing issues, noting it had been difficult to do so before. Some challenges related to availability of information and information sharing between partners were still noted (e.g. level of information provided, information needs of the different Strategy partners). This information was seen as significantly important to further advance policy development activities and allow changes in policy direction and approach. Discussions and the implementation of a horizontal Performance Measurement Strategy could help in this regard.

Interviewees highlighted some potential opportunity areas in relation to the overall coordination of the Strategy, including better communication of respective roles and responsibilities to Strategy partners (the recently established MOU between Strategy partners should help in this regard) and to external stakeholders, stronger engagement of and closer partnerships with provincial stakeholders, enhanced coordination between public awareness activities and operational response. Public awareness campaigns and activities are currently prioritized based on provincial and territorial context and agreements between C3P and provincial/territorial governments. C3P also identifies and prioritizes its research studies based on reporting patterns and needs identified by law enforcement agencies, educators, Crown Prosecutors and governments. These activities (awareness activities and research studies) are not informed and prioritized by PS in keeping with a federal plan.

The previous evaluation noted that “PS should continue its coordination activities and expand its leadership efforts. To this end, PS should further engage the Strategy partners in coordinating activities related to communications (public awareness) and research. PS should continue to work with national and international partners to improve collaboration, share best practices and exchange ideas on child sexual exploitation on the Internet. PS should continue to advance dialogue with the provinces and territories on issues of common interest. PS should also continue to demonstrate leadership in advancing strategic planning by coordinating research to keep apprised of developments in technology, trends and emerging issues and sharing the results with interdepartmental working groups, including Strategy partners”.

In terms of performance measurement, the evaluation notes significant gaps. Data is not consistently and formally tracked by all partners (e.g. no data was available from NCECCFootnote 66 for 2008-09 and 2009-10). The National Strategy would benefit from regular data collection and from closer integration of performance measurement and reporting in order to provide a consolidated picture of Strategy efforts from all partners. The previous evaluation also noted gaps in performance measurement. The implementation of the performance measurement strategy, which was developed in 2013, will be instrumental in monitoring and gauging the performance related to each of the Strategy's expected outcomes.

4.3 Performance—Efficiency and Economy

The assessment of resource utilization reflects the degree to which a program demonstrates efficiency and economy. To this end, Treasury Board guidance indicates that “evaluations need to explore issues such as what and how resources were used in the realization of outputs and outcomes, whether the extent of resource utilization was reasonable for the level of outputs and outcomes observed, and whether there are alternatives that would yield the same or similar results using the same or a different level of resources”Footnote 67. To undertake this assessment for the National Strategy, the evaluation examined:

4.3.1 Potential Societal Costs and Benefits

The evaluation team performed a targeted literature reviewFootnote 68 to generally determine the societal costs and benefits linked to efforts to combat internet child sexual exploitation. Determining the societal costs and benefits associated with efforts to combat crimes such as child sexual exploitation is not an exact science. The literature review indicates that estimates can vary significantly depending on the methodologies and assumptions used in the analysis. Nevertheless, studies of the topic indicate that the societal costs of child sexual abuse and the benefits of addressing it are substantial. Most estimates are deemed conservative due to factors such as underreporting and lack of reliable data for this type of crime.

The literature search uncovered no studies dealing exclusively with the economic impact of online child sexual exploitationFootnote 69 . However, several studies have attempted to estimate the social and economic costs of victimization, child abuse and child sexual abuse. These studies can be used to approximate the costs of online child sexual exploitation.

In a report for the U.S. Department of Justice, Miller estimated that victimization costs total approximately $450 billion per year, an amount equivalent to a “crime tax” of $1,800 per U.S. citizen. Of that, about $105 billion is considered to be tangible costs of crime, while $345 billion are intangible (e.g. pain and suffering and lost quality of life). The study revealed that the injuries related to child sex abuse were the most expensive of all crime categoriesFootnote 70. Non‑monetary, intangible costs of child sex abuse were estimated to be approximately US $90,000 (1993 dollars) per criminal victimization compared to US $9,000 (1993 dollars) for tangible costs. This estimate does not include the costs involved in operating the criminal justice system, such as lawyers' fees and court costsFootnote 71.

A report prepared for the Law Commission of Canada estimated the cost of all types of child abuse for Canadian society at $15.7 billion in 1998. These costs included judicial, social services, education, health, employment and personal costs. Based on their research, the authors concluded that there is a “tremendous imbalance” in what Canada as a society allocates to reduce the effects of abuse compared to the costs of abuseFootnote 72. In a study by Hankivsky and Draker, the economic cost specifically attributable to child sexual abuse in Canada for the 1997-98 fiscal year was estimated to exceed $3.6 billion annually. This estimate includes both public and private costs across four policy areas: health, social/public services, justice, and education/research and employmentFootnote 73.

Studies emphasize that the adverse health effects of child sexual abuse have long-term economic consequences for society. For example, research indicates that victims of child sexual abuse incur higher than average mental health costsFootnote 74. Data from one Australian study indicates that the health cost for an abused person is nearly three times that for a non‑abused personFootnote 75. The literature shows that victims of childhood abuse are less likely to be employed in adulthood and, if employed, are less likely to be in skilled or professional occupations. In addition, those who have been maltreated have lower earnings and fewer assets. MacMillan has estimated the lifetime income loss attributable to childhood abuse at approximately US $241,600Footnote 76.

It was not possible to calculate a benefit-cost ratio specifically for the National Strategy for the past few years. Nonetheless, studies support the rationale that if prevention and other related activities are actually reducing the number of child sexual abused victims, this outcome could have a substantial impact on the financial resources needed for victim care. Furthermore, as Hankivsky and Draker put it, “the impact of child sexual abuse is much more than just the initial and resulting costs. The continuing effects of abuse on the individual mean that there are continuing costs to society, as well as to the individual”Footnote 77.

Literature and document review indicate that "no evidence in the scientific literature from primary or secondary research studies was identified regarding the efficacy, effectiveness, and safety of prevention and therapeutic strategies for sexual exploitation of children and youth via the Internet. [However] evidence from meta-analyses on the effectiveness and safety of preventive approaches to offline child sexual abuse has shown that prevention programs are effective in increasing knowledge and self-protection skills in children and youth"Footnote 78. The National Strategy contributes to prevention efforts through its public awareness and education activities, which varied between approximately $675,000 and $1M in contributions to C3P in recent years. Albeit less directly, support provided by Strategy partners to law enforcement agencies in the arrest of individuals also contributes to this objective, as these individuals are prevented from further offending. Some studies show that sexual offenders abuse more than a single victim.

4.3.2 Cost Trends—Key Outputs and Outcomes

According to Treasury Board guidance, allocative efficiencyFootnote 79 generally focuses on the relationship between resources and outcomes. Assessments of economy are focused on “the extent to which resource use has been minimized in the implementation and delivery of programs.”Footnote 80 With these concepts in mind, the evaluation assessed trends in spending and output/outcome achievement of the National Strategy.

The ultimate outcome of the Strategy is: “enhanced protection of children from online sexual exploitation”. To determine whether the resources consumed in the achievement of outcomes were reasonable and being minimized, the evaluation team examined the two key programming “levers” that support this outcome: coordinated investigations and awarenessFootnote 81.

“Investigation” Outcomes

Under the National Strategy, coordinated and comprehensive investigations, conducted by the law enforcement agency of jurisdiction, are intended to support the ultimate aim of protecting children. The evaluation assessed trends in efficiency of NCECC's delivery of investigative packages in support of investigations by law enforcement agencies of jurisdiction. In this analysis, the evaluation examined whether output production over time has become more efficient. The results are shown in the table below.

Table 2: NCECC Operations Outputs
  2010-11 2011-12 2012-13
Number of reports and assistance requests received by NCECC (demand)Footnote 82 5,019 6,230 8,493
Number of NCECC investigative packages sent to law enforcement agencies (output) 755 724 533

Investigative packages are considered one of the key outputs of NCECC Operations. While changes in resources were negligible, the amount of investigative packages (outputs) produced showed a declining trend, while requests for services were increasing. It should be noted that all investigative packages are not “considered equal” (i.e. preparation of packages for smaller, less complex cases requires a lower level of effort while packages for larger cases require a great deal of effort). The NCECC indicates that the process has been streamlined and reports are now consolidated resulting in fewer packages with more reports.

In terms of timeliness, which may also be a measure of whether investigative packages are being delivered efficiently, the previous evaluation stated that: “interviewees indicated that NCECC has saved time and money by putting investigative packages together. Information provided by NCECC shows turnaround times for NCECC to assemble various types of investigative packages and forward them to the appropriate jurisdiction; NCECC is now meeting the turnaround times whereas at the outset a six-month backlog existed.”Footnote 83 Analysis conducted for the current evaluation shows that this situation deteriorated over the evaluation period given findings related to processing times, backlog and perceptions from law enforcement agencies discussed previously.

Another output that contributes to investigation outcomes is Cybertip.ca's triage function and triaged reports. The evaluation examined whether contributions paid to Cybertip.ca over the last four years for these outputs is trending towards greater efficiency. The results are shown in the table below.

Table 3: Cybertip.ca Outputs
  2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13
EstimateFootnote 84 of federal contributions paid for Cybertip.ca triage $897,000 $904,800 $1,103,600 $1,073,800
Reports received by Cybertip.ca for triage 7,913 8,651 10,001 26,507
Reports forwarded to Canadian law enforcement 1,998 2,633 2,137 4,247
Federal contribution per triaged report $113 $105 $110 $41

As shown in the table, Cybertip.ca triaged an increasing number of reports. Federal contributions to Cybertip.ca for this purpose also generally increased, with the exception of 2012-13, which saw a slight decrease in financial contributions coupled with a significant increase in number of reports to be triaged. The cost per triaged report remained fairly stable for the first three years, but dropped significantly over the last year. Out of total reports received (row 2), those forwarded to Canadian law enforcement agencies (row 3) also generally increased. It should be noted that Cybertip.ca may receive funding from other sources to conduct triage; therefore, the full cost of triaging reports for their organization may be higher. The evaluation aimed to provide an assessment of the cost to the federal government.

“Awareness” Outcomes

Under the National Strategy, efforts were undertaken to enhance public awareness in order to support children, families and their communities in preventing online child sexual exploitation. Through funding from PS, C3P delivers awareness and education activities. The table below illustrates the estimated share of contributions paid by PS for awareness and education outcomes.

Table 4: Contribution Payments for Awareness and Education
  2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13
Estimate of contributions paid for awareness and education outputsFootnote 85 $1,053,000 $835,200 $676,400 $746,200

As shown, the dollar figures generally trended downward, with the exception of 2012-13. Performance data indicates that the distribution of educational material has fluctuated over the evaluation period, with an average yearly distribution of over one million educational pieces (all materials and target audiences included). The range of target audiences expanded over the last three years of the program, and specifically the last year (2012-13) where outreach to law enforcement was significant. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of guides and kits distributed (2,000%) over the five‑year evaluation period, and the geographical reach (from three provinces in 2008-09 to all of the provinces and one territory) has also expanded. Therefore, for a reduced cost over the past five years, C3P was able to enhance its awareness activities and expand its reach within existing and new target audiences.

Also in terms of value to the federal government through the leveraging of contributions, the previous evaluation indicated that “in 2007-08, for every dollar spent [on C3P], 41 cents in private sector donations was realized resulting in $725,000 in private sector funding.” Current results indicate that this number has increased to approximately 85 cents per dollar in 2012-13.

In terms of efforts aimed at enhancing public awareness, the National Strategy has realized an increased level of output for the same cost. The outstanding issue is measuring the extent to which these activities enhance public awareness and ultimately result in actions to prevent abuse. No conclusive information was available in this regard. C3P is exploring ways to measure the impact of educational material on behaviour change.

Administration of the PS Contribution Program

The evaluation also examined the “operational efficiencyFootnote 86 of PS in its delivery the Contribution Program. The delivery of the Contribution Program supports awareness and educational activities, as well as the investigation side of the National Strategy through the triage function of Cybertip.ca. In order to assess operational efficiency, the evaluation calculated the average program administration ratioFootnote 87.

The average annual program administration ratio calculated over the past five years was 6%. These results align with other similar PS programs that have single or few recipients and fewer administrative activities. Calculations related to the ratios are found in Appendix F.

4.3.3 Use of Allocated Resources

The evaluation assessed whether resource utilization (expenditures) by program staff was aligned with funding allocationsFootnote 88 provided to federal partners in inception documents. It is noted that, in some cases, the analysis is based on best estimates of expenditures by program staff since financial coding did not track the activities separately.

The analysis shows that the PS program spent an average of about $71,409 (or about 3%) per year in additional resources to deliver National Strategy activities. These additional resources came from other departmental sources. Justice Canada also consistently expended their allocations for National Strategy activities.

In terms of the RCMP, results from the previous evaluation stated that: “Spending of resources against budgets by Strategy partners is generally within acceptable limits with the exception of the RCMP, which has under spent its budget since 2004-05 by approximately 40%. Approximately 20% of this amount can be accounted for by the fact that the image database is delayed and funding is re-profiled each year to account for the delay. Another factor that may have contributed to under spending is the challenge of recruitment and retention across the RCMP and law enforcement, in general, and in the online child sexual exploitation area, in particular, because it is a psychologically demanding field of law enforcement specialization.”Footnote 89 The current evaluation found that this situation has not changed significantly in recent years. The NCECC notes that this situation may be due to the complex staffing process for this type of investigation. Due to an intensive recruitment process (inclusive of inoculation with imagery, and psychological assessment), some identified candidates determine that the position is not suitable for them, and/or the psychological assessment may find the candidate to be unsuitable. In either case, the process has to start again with a prospective employee.

Table 5: RCMP Allocated Resources and Expenditures
  2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13
TOTAL Original Allocations* 8,261,910 7,878,290 7,954,860 7,866,150 7,852,150
Departmental Reallocations -172,382 -137,755 -836,970 -563,699 -568,141
TOTAL Allocations Available to NCECC 8,089,528 7,740,535 7,117,890 7,302,451 7,284,009
TOTAL Expenditures 4,822,078 4,962,971 6,009,380 5,792,516 6,000,779
Allocations minus Expenditures 3,267,450 2,777,564 1,108,510 1,509,935 1,283,230
Variance 40% 36% 16% 21% 18%

* Includes salaries, operations and maintenance and capital amounts. Net amounts, excluding employee benefit plan, accommodations and internal services.

As per table 5, original National Strategy allocations were reduced through several internal reallocations, including the National Police Services tax, management reallocations and the Deficit Reduction Action Plan. As a result, allocations available to NCECC were lower than originally intended. Despite improvements over the last three years, RCMP expenditures fell short of allocations by an average of about $2,000,000 (or about 26%) per year. RCMP program and Finance staff indicated that the RCMP's systematic budget reset and re‑allocation contributed to this situation; which resulted in reduced resources available to NCECC for National Strategy activities. Over the course of the evaluation, the amount lapsed has decreased. The NCECC explains that this is a result of positions being established, technological systems designed and implemented, technological equipment purchased, and training opportunities offered.

It is further noted that a recommendation from the previous evaluation indicated that: “Efforts should be made to allocate the 20% of funding that is consistently under spent by the RCMP to forensics support for investigators…It is important to note that control of the funding should remain with NCECC to ensure that the funding is spent on Strategy activities.”Footnote 90 It is unclear if implementation of this recommendation has been actioned.

5. Conclusions

5.1 Relevance

The evaluation found that there is a continued need to address the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet. Evidence shows increasing trends in the number of reported offences, the availability of material and the severity of these criminal acts. The increasing use of the Internet, mobile technologies and social media has facilitated the sexual exploitation of children. Concerns about child pornography have extended to the availability of material on peer-to-peer networks, the “dark Web” and through encrypted technologies. The problem extends well beyond Canada's borders. Law enforcement faces increasing challenges posed by transnational child sex offenders in addition to online child sexual exploitation offences in general. These types of international investigations are appropriately characterized as increasingly complex.

The National Strategy remains relevant to ensure national collaboration and a consistent national approach, as well as cooperation with the international community. The evaluation points to a continued need for improved data collection, increased research efforts and enhanced information exchange at a national level in order to better understand the underpinnings and contributing factors surrounding online child sexual exploitation. There may be a need to revisit the current mandate as a number of areas of concern are expanding (e.g. transnational child sex offenders, self-peer exploitation or “sexting”, cyberbullying, sextortion and sexualized child modelling) that were not originally envisioned by the National Strategy. Increased public reporting will put additional resourcing pressures on the law enforcement community. There is also evidence to indicate that there is still a need to increase knowledge and awareness about Internet child sexual exploitation and that the issue needs to be addressed through a multi-faceted approach (e.g. socially through education and prevention, and complemented by law enforcement efforts).

The National Strategy aligns with federal priorities and the departmental mandates of the federal Strategy partners. The safety and security of children is central to federal strategic priorities as reflected in numerous legislative initiatives, ministerial press releases, official documents and initiatives, and is consistent with the federal commitment made most recently in the 2013 Speech from the Throne.

The National Strategy aligns with federal legislative roles and responsibilities of Strategy partners and the broad role of the federal government in the safety and security of Canadians. Investigations cross jurisdictions and require the collaboration and coordination of many stakeholders nationally and internationally. There is an opportunity for PS to provide greater leadership at the national level in areas of cooperation and in facilitating data collection, research and information sharing. The National Strategy also supports international commitments aimed at combating child sexual exploitation on the Internet.

Evidence suggests that initiatives by other jurisdictions or non-profit organizations tend to complement the National Strategy. However, there may be opportunities for greater synergy and collaboration, especially between the federal government and provinces and territories in order to ensure that federal investments are targeted to areas of greatest need. In support of this, Strategy partners continue to develop partnerships with provinces, non-governmental organizations and private industry as well as participate in the Federal/Provincial/Territorial committees. From an enforcement perspective, the Strategy helps avoid duplication by providing a centralized coordinated approach and central point of contact for investigations that cross multiple jurisdictions nationally and internationally.

5.2 Performance—Effectiveness

Public Reporting
Cases of online child sexual exploitation reported by the public to Cybertip.ca have been increasing for the past ten years, with a significant increase being noted in 2012-13. The National Strategy has contributed to this trend through activities aimed at enhancing public awareness and stimulating public reporting (e.g. awareness campaigns), as well as participation in high-profile investigations with provincial, municipal and international law enforcement agencies. It is likely that other factors, activities and actors outside of the National Strategy are also impacting general public awareness and reporting.

Coordinated approach
The National Strategy aimed to put in place a nationally coordinated approach to online child sexual exploitation investigations through centralized points of contact for public reporting (Cybertip.ca) and investigations (NCECC), as well as through other forms of law enforcement support. The evaluation found that the National Strategy has contributed to this outcome, but that gaps remain.

Canadian law enforcement agencies noted that while NCECC investigative packages generally offer useful information, delays in receiving packages have an adverse impact on the ability to conduct investigations in a timely manner. Delays were attributed to resource or staffing issues, an increase in the volume of reports, and backlog or operational issues. International law enforcement agencies find NCECC packages timely, accurate and complete. Cybertip.ca's triage function helped reduce Canadian law enforcement's processing burden and the reports provided have been timely and comprehensive. However, building on the positive work initiated through the new National Strategy working committee, closer cooperation is needed between Cybertip.ca and NCECC, and an examination is also warranted to determine how Cybertip.ca reports can best support NCECC's investigative work. Furthermore, the overall coordination and investigative process could benefit from a more formal and consistent feedback mechanism between Cybertip.ca, NCECC and Canadian law enforcement agencies regarding the status and result of investigations.

The National Strategy continues to deliver key benefits with respect to enhancing investigative coordination and supporting law enforcement agencies. Cybertip.ca supported law enforcement agencies with assistance and information for investigations. NCECC is seen to be an appropriate body for coordinating major national investigations and continues to play a critical role in facilitating the international component of investigations, despite concerns about capacity, which may potentially hinder efforts towards a nationally coordinated approach. Favorable views were held about NCECC training and assistance to law enforcement agencies, such as the categorization of child pornography material, victim identification and other operational support. Information technology systems continue to present a challenge to coordination efforts under the National Strategy, and challenges remain with regards to the establishment of an effective online child sexual exploitation tracking system for law enforcement agencies in Canada.

Supporting Children, Families and their Communities in Preventing Online Child Sexual Exploitation
The National Strategy has supported children, families and their communities through the education activities of C3P. Materials developed by C3P are widely distributed and referenced by law enforcement agencies and others (e.g. educators) in presentations and school programs. C3P also delivered numerous awareness and education activities. Some of their educational programs report successful findings with regards to quality, usefulness and affecting change among participating organizations. Through these activities, it is likely that C3P has contributed to enhancing awareness, encouraging reporting and educating parents, teachers and children about the risks of online child sexual exploitation, despite impact not being quantified and other factors also contributing to general awareness among Canadians. Evidence also shows that public awareness campaigns and publicity around enforcement actions routinely generate strong interest from the public in obtaining information and educational programs related to child sexual exploitation, which also suggests an enhanced level of awareness. Nonetheless, due to the evolving nature of online child sexual exploitation, there are still opportunities to increase public awareness, education and prevention.

Partnerships and Other Activities Supporting a National Approach
The National Strategy continues to support partnerships with national and international stakeholders, the private sector, the non-profit sector, and law enforcement counterparts that are important to achieving successful outcomes. These partnerships support investigative capacity building and/or awareness and education efforts and include training, knowledge and resource exchanges, workshops and national conferences.

Enhanced Protection of Children from Online Child Sexual Exploitation
The evaluation shows that efforts by National Strategy partners have contributed to the enhanced protection of children from sexual exploitation on the Internet. C3P contributed through triaging tips, processing reports for investigation by law enforcement agencies, identifying Websites containing child pornography and through their outreach activities and materials. NCECC contributed by preparing investigative packages, coordinating national and international major cases, providing investigative support as well as investigative training. Several high profile cases leading to the rescue of victims and the arrest of suspects illustrate the contribution of the National Strategy.

Informing Policy and Legislative Development
The National Strategy is seen as an important instrument with activities that enhance the body of knowledge of online child sexual exploitation through research, reports and analysis. Studies have helped inform policy development, however, further and better integrated research is needed to guide policy, legislative changes, law enforcement approaches, and prevention and treatment strategies. The evaluation notes that, in exercising its leadership role, PS should explore opportunities for greater synergy and collaboration and involve a broader base of stakeholders to enhance the identification of policy and legislative issues and to develop a federal vision on Internet child sexual exploitation. This issue crosses over into several other related policy areas (e.g. human trafficking, cybercrime, cyberbullying). There is a need to strategically position child sexual exploitation to respond to political priorities and to ensure accountability.

Horizontal Governance and Performance Measurement
There is opportunity to strengthen overall coordination and governance of the Strategy. There have been improvements since a more formal committee was put in place in April 2013, bringing together PS, NCECC and C3P. There are still challenges related to the availability of information and information sharing between partners. Key areas to address in the overall coordination of the Strategy include increased clarity and communication of roles and responsibilities of the various Strategy partners, stronger engagement of and closer partnerships with provincial stakeholders, and enhanced coordination between public awareness activities and operational response. Strategy activities should be guided by and aligned with a federal agenda. Finally, as identified in the previous evaluation, gaps remain related to performance measurement. The implementation of the performance measurement strategy, developed in 2013, will be instrumental in monitoring and gauging the performance related to each of the Strategy's expected outcomes.

5.3 Performance—Efficiency and Economy

Research indicates that sexual abuse of children results in very high costs to society over the long-term. This suggests that investments of public funds to combat such crimes, especially those involving sexual abuse, could have large economic benefits, potentially reaching several billion dollars annually.

PS demonstrated effective use of resources in managing the Contribution Program, and its funding recipient, C3P, also seems to be efficiently delivering activities and producing deliverables, both in terms of triage and educational material. The combination of increased demand for NCECC services, coupled with issues related to timeliness and a backlog have challenged NCECC efficiency in recent years. It should be noted that measures of efficiency do not reflect the increasing complexity of investigations.

In terms of use of allocated resources, PS and Justice generally expended allocations intended to be spent on National Strategy activities within expected limits, while RCMP expenditures fell short of their allocations by an average of 26% per year. This situation was also noted in the previous evaluation. Although over the course of the evaluation period, the amount lapsed has decreased to 18% in 2012-13.

6. Recommendations

The Internal Audit and Evaluation Directorate recommends that PS, RCMP and Justice, implement the following:

  1. PS should examine opportunities to enhance its leadership, governance and horizontal coordination efforts, in collaboration with RCMP and Justice as appropriate, to align with the government's policy direction and federal vision for the National Strategy.
  2. PS and RCMP should examine current process to identify potential causes to NCECC's difficulty in pursuing Cybertip.ca reports, and take corrective actions deemed necessary.
  3. The RCMP should examine the causes to the lack of timeliness of NCECC services. This could involve a mapping of processes within NCECC and between NCECC, Cybertip.ca and/or law enforcement agencies and the examination of resource use and allocation of funding intended to address online child sexual exploitation. PS should facilitate Cybertip.ca's involvement as required.
  4. The RCMP should work with its national and international police partners in terms of implementing a technological solution as an alternative to CETS in order to meet the needs of law enforcement users to facilitate national coordination of child sexual exploitation investigations, information and intelligence sharing and avoid duplication.
  5. All Strategy partners should proactively collect and report performance information as laid out in the Performance Measurement Strategy, including the results of prevention activities and enforcement actions. Stronger engagement of provincial/municipal law enforcement agencies is required to collect information.

7. Management Response and Action Plan

Recommendation Management Response Action Planned Planned Completion Date
1. PS should examine opportunities to enhance its leadership, governance and horizontal coordination efforts, in collaboration with RCMP and Justice as appropriate, to align with the government's policy direction and federal vision for the National Strategy. Accept Increase the frequency of the meetings of the PS/NCECC/ JUS/C3P Working Committee from bi-annually to quarterly, to discuss emerging trends, research gaps, and ways forward. December 2015
Expand membership of the Working Committee to include communications advisors to coordinate common events and announcements that pertain directly to National Strategy (i.e., law enforcement actions, public education/ awareness/ prevention activities, and key legislation). March 2015
Examine opportunities to better engage and enhance collaboration among key stakeholders through existing national governance structures and international fora such as the RCMP's Integrated Child Exploitation Officer in Charge (ICE OIC) bi-annual meetings, the Coordinating Committee of Senior Officials (CCSO) Cybercrime Working Group, and the Canadian Coalition Against Internet Child Exploitation (CCAICE). June 2015 and ongoing
    Conduct an environmental scan of other initiatives being undertaken in Canada to address online child sexual exploitation to identify potential synergies and issues of common interest; enhance the sharing of information/best practices; and coordinate research initiatives that focus on emerging trends and priority areas. March 2016
Develop a paper on the online sexual exploitation of children to outline the current response under the National Strategy, identify challenges (legislative, operational, programmatic) and develop opportunities for action moving forward. September 2015
Identify mechanisms to facilitate information sharing and best practices (e.g., SharePoint, Newsletter). June 2015
2. PS and RCMP should examine current process to identify potential causes to NCECC's difficulty in pursuing Cybertip.ca reports, and take corrective actions deemed necessary. Accept Examine flow of operational information, including evidence capture and information sharing impediments. April 2016
Develop operational process map.
Explore the possibility of posting a law enforcement official at Cybertip.ca to capture evidence. April 2015
3. The RCMP should examine the causes to the lack of timeliness of NCECC services. This could involve a mapping of processes within NCECC and between NCECC, Cybertip.ca and/or law enforcement agencies and the examination of resource use and allocation of funding intended to address online child sexual exploitation. PS should facilitate Cybertip.ca's involvement as required.     Accept Review standard operating procedures and identify opportunities to streamline.   March 2016
4. The RCMP should work with its national and international police partners in terms of implementing a technological solution as an alternative to CETS in order to meet the needs of law enforcement users to facilitate national coordination of child sexual exploitation investigations, information and intelligence sharing and avoid duplication. Accept Transform CETS from an intelligence system to a referral system (referred inside CETS to the police agency of jurisdiction). January 2016
5. All Strategy partners should proactively collect and report performance information as laid out in the Performance Measurement Strategy, including the results of prevention activities and enforcement actions. Stronger engagement of provincial/municipal law enforcement agencies is required to collect information. Accept Examine the Performance Measurement Strategy Framework (developed as part of the Performance Measurement Strategy in 2013) to ensure the indicators (qualitative and quantitative) identified to monitor and gauge each of the Strategy's expected outcomes, are realistic and attainable. September 2015
Implement the Performance Measurement Strategy Framework. January 2016
Explore the development and implementation of a real time tracking system for performance measures that the RCMP can track. January 2016

APPENDIX A: Documents Reviewed

Websites

APPENDIX B: Triaging by Cybertip.ca

Triage Example #1:

Between September 2002 and March 2013, Cybertip.ca received 15,989 reports from individuals in Ontario. Of those reports, 510 (3.1%) were sent to a law enforcement agency in Ontario, while 7,069 (44.2%) were forwarded to law enforcement agencies outside of Ontario, NCECC, or INHOPE international tiplines.

Triage Example #2:

Between September 2002 and March 2013, Cybertip.ca received 4,656 reports from individuals in Alberta. Of those reports, 128 (2.7%) were sent to law enforcement agency in Alberta, while 1,280 (27.5%) were forwarded to law enforcement outside of Alberta, NCECC, or INHOPE international tiplines.

Triage Example #3:

Between September 2002 and June 2013, Cybertip.ca received 3,300 reports from individuals in British Columbia. Of those reports, 190 (5.75%) were sent to law enforcement agency in British Columbia, while 1,234 (37%) were forwarded to law enforcement outside of British Columbia, NCECC, or INHOPE international tiplines.  

APPENDIX C: Projects Funded by the Contribution Program

The table presents the results of projects funded by the contribution program that focused on addressing child sexual exploitation and human trafficking. The table below provides a snapshot of completed projects (at the time of review) based on final project reports sent to PS by the funding recipients.

Project/Focus Recipient Date Objective Summary of results
Aboriginal Centred-Community Expert Training
(Child sexual exploitation)		 Safe Online Outreach Society Nov. 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010 To encourage service delivery to communities based on a “train the trainer” model bringing together key service providers, training them on Internet safety, enhancing their roles as knowledge-holders in their communities, and encouraging them to educate their colleagues and clients. The participants demonstrated increased knowledge on a variety of levels, despite their varying competencies; discussed specific ways they might increase collaboration with their peers and communities to keep children and youth safe online. An effective and flexible curriculum was developed and adapted for each training community, with content and philosophies that can be tailored successfully for other Canadian communities. The program was delivered in several First Nations communities in British Columbia, and reached 27 practitioners, including youth, health, education and community workers and/or coordinators.
Smart Parents, Safe Kids
(Child sexual exploitation) 		DIVERSEcity Community Resources Society Dec. 1, 2009 to Feb. 28, 2011 To provide information to teens and parents about the dangers of online child sexual exploitation and to engage with community workers in culturally diverse communities. This project included numerous home visits to families, presentations to community leaders and professionals, community meetings, school presentations, awareness brochures and media presence (radio, TV and newspapers). The message distributed by the Smart & Safe program resonated with outreach workers who have embedded it into existing programs (e.g. after school programs) in order to sustain this safety message. The Smart & Safe program met and exceeded its initial goals.
Gauging Human Trafficking Study
(Human Trafficking)		 Metis Child and Family Services Society of Edmonton Aug. 1, 2009 to Mar. 31, 2010 To explore the perceptions of Aboriginal women about human trafficking and to explore possible vulnerability factors that may have contributed to their exploitation. Interviews were conducted with close to 400 women (about 270 were Aboriginal) involved in high risk lifestyles. Findings outlined a number of factors that may contribute to human trafficking and sexual exploitation. The study lead to identifying areas that require further exploration and recommended: increasing awareness activities aimed at Aboriginal youth on reserves; furthering research on the role of family members and the needs of women that exit the lifestyle; and providing a continuum of services that are culturally based, address mental health issues and provide follow-up care and workforce re-entry programs.
Human Trafficking in BC: Training and Curriculum for a Comprehensive Response
(Human Trafficking)		 Metis Child and Family Services Society of Edmonton Oct. 1, 2009 to Dec. 25, 2010 To develop Canada's first on-line training curriculum on human trafficking for service providers who assist trafficked persons. Designed an on-line training curriculum comprised of four modules on key topics related to assisting service providers to identify a trafficked person and provide them with an effective referral. The curriculum includes a set of tools (e.g. videos, case studies, quizzes, job aides for service providers, and links to other useful material for service providers). The curriculum was developed with the guidance of many government and community organizations, experts in the field and through the experiences of trafficked persons. The curriculum was to be disseminated to stakeholders, service providers and partners and made available on the British Colombia Government Website.
Blue Blindfold National Awareness Campaign
(Human Trafficking)		 Canadian Crime Stoppers Association Dec. 20, 2010 to
Apr. 30, 2012 		To raise awareness and increase knowledge of human trafficking in Canada and to provide a vehicle through which the public can anonymously report suspected cases of human trafficking. Produced brochures and presentations that were distributed through Crime Stoppers programs in communities across the country (e.g. over 100,000 brochures have been distributed). Media re-enactments were produced for TV, Radio and Newspaper. Training meetings were held in Ottawa and allowed provincial and territorial Crime Stoppers Directors to be in a better position to help local programs and conduct community presentations. Since promoting Crime Stoppers 24/7 1-800 tipline for public reporting of suspected cases of human trafficking, over 300 related tips were received. Prior to the campaign, Crime Stoppers had not received any tips on the topic of human trafficking.
Unveiling the Myths
(Human Trafficking)		 Ekklesia Inner-City Ministries Jan. 1, 2011
to Nov. 30, 2011 		To hold a 2-Day Human Trafficking Awareness Event bringing together counter-trafficking agencies as exhibitors. The following counter-trafficking organizations were present as exhibitors: International Justice Mission Canada, Sextrade 101, Free The Children, Free Them, the RCMP and PS. Approximately 2500 people walked through the installation over the two days. Several exhibitors commented that valuable connections were made during the event.
Towards Human Trafficking Prevention: A Discussion Document
(Human Trafficking)		 International Centre for Criminal Law Reform & Criminal Justice Policy Jan. 4, 2011 to Mar. 31, 2011 To create a discussion paper on important issues related to the prevention of human trafficking for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labour. The paper was distributed to experts attending International and National Expert Meetings on Human Trafficking prevention to promote discussions. The purpose of the meetings was to assist in the development of a comprehensive framework for human trafficking prevention that looks beyond current practices and findings from a range of international and national partners and experts.
Towards Human Trafficking Prevention: National and International Expert Working Group Meetings
(Human Trafficking)		 International Centre for Criminal Law Reform & Criminal Justice Policy Feb. 2, 2011 to Mar. 31, 2011 To advance knowledge about the effective prevention of human trafficking, to delineate possible elements of a human trafficking prevention framework for Canada and contribute to international efforts. In 2011, two expert group meetings were organized in Montreal on human trafficking prevention: one international and one national. The international meeting involved 26 participants from eight different countries and several international organizations. The national meeting was attended by 31 participants representing federal, provincial, municipal, police, non-government and research organizations. The Meetings Report outlines proposed guiding principles and possible elements of a human trafficking prevention framework.
Trafficking in Persons Prevention Research and Roundtable Discussions: Manitoba Roundtable
(Human Trafficking)		 Manitoba Status of Women       Feb. 2, 2011 to Mar. 31, 2011 To organize events focusing on the prevention of human trafficking and advancing the Government's knowledge about effective and innovative initiatives that could contribute to a prevention framework for Canada. Two regional roundtables were held in British Columbia and in Manitoba where a number of themes were discussed such as aboriginal history and self-determination, public awareness campaigns, increasing educational and training opportunities, programs and services. The information from the regional roundtables contributed to the National and International Expert Working Group Meetings that were subsequently organized.
Expert and Stakeholder Consultation on Human Trafficking
(Human Trafficking)		 British Columbia Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons Feb. 1, 2011 to Mar. 31, 2011 To develop a concept paper to inform an expert and stakeholder consultation focused on human trafficking and crime prevention. The overarching goal of the conference held in British Columbia in 2011 was to identify prevention strategies relevant to human trafficking in British Columbia. That information was then feed into national and international roundtables held in Montreal. Hoped outcomes of these consultations include knowledge transfer within and between roundtables and increased collaboration and partnerships.
Toward an Effective Response: Human Trafficking in Nova Scotia
(Human Trafficking)		 Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women Feb. 1, 2011 to Jan. 20, 2012 To raise awareness about human trafficking, to launch a resource-mapping tool and collect feedback on best practices/gaps to inform future initiatives. The project raised awareness and strengthened the provincial network of relevant organizations and agencies that could address the issue of trafficking. 276 participants attended 18 outreach meetings that included service providers and first responders from community, government and law enforcement agencies. As a result, a list was created with information on over 100 organizations that can provide support to victims. Informational postcards that provide an overview of human trafficking and introduce the electronic-asset map for support services for victims were also created in multiple languages. A provincial symposium was held with over 135 attendees. It focused on trauma-informed responses to victims of trafficking. The resource mapping tool was launched at the symposium. Lessons learned were gathered and culminated into recommendations for future directions.
Aboriginal-Centered Community Expert Training
(Human Trafficking)		 Safe Online Outreach Society Feb. 18, 2011 to June 30, 2011 To develop an awareness training program on human trafficking of aboriginal youths using the Aboriginal Centered Community Expert Training “train the trainer” approach. Three sessions were held and reached a total of 68 practitioners working with youth. The program resulted in access to information and awareness cascading from professionals to youth, children, families, schools and communities of trainees. Participants demonstrated increased knowledge and they discussed specific ways to increase collaboration with peers and communities to keep children and youth safe online. An effective and flexible curriculum has been revised and adapted for each training community.
Youth Forum on Human Trafficking
(Human Trafficking)		 NASHI: Our Children Apr. 1, 2011 to Oct. 31, 2012 To make youth aware of human trafficking, help them develop an understanding how a community can be active in combating human trafficking, and give them an opportunity to create solutions A Youth Forum took place in Saskatoon and brought together over 1200 participants representing Grades 6-12, outreach programs and church groups. The Forum raised awareness and encouraged young people to make a commitment. Evaluations and follow up with participants show that they are committed to the long term objectives identified. One school, after the Forum, has organized a CHAIN BREAKERS CLUB that meets weekly. NASHI continues to receive calls for additional presentations in schools. The Forum created partnerships between local organizations and various products were developed (e.g. Website, YouTube video, Video footage of The Forum, informational sheets for teachers).

APPENDIX D: National Strategy Partnership Work

NECCC signed six (6) Memoranda of Understanding and five (5) partnership agreements with international, federal, provincial, non-governmental and private organizations, as well as secondment assignments with five (5) Canadian law enforcement agencies. NCECC also participated in the Child Protection Partnership (between Canada, Brazil and Thailand) and the Costa Rica Outreach Initiative in order to provide training, transfer knowledge, forge partnerships and increase awareness with an ultimate goal of increasing investigative capacity and making links with community organizations in those countries. These countries were identified as high risk based on a study of Canadian transnational child sex offenders.

Records show that C3P entered into five (5) formal agreements with partners and was in the process of finalizing six (6) additional formal agreements. These agreements deal primarily with reporting and public education. C3P has also put in place ten (10) informal agreements, dealing primarily with issues pertaining to self/peer child sexual exploitation, the dissemination of public educational material and improving ways to address online child sexual exploitation. C3P established eight (8) additional partnerships with private sector organizations, mostly for the purpose of public education and participation in the Cleanfeed Canada initiativeFootnote 91.

Organization Partnerships
Type Number of Partners
NCECC Memorandums of Understanding 6
Partnership agreements 5
Secondment assignments 5
C3P Formal agreements 5 (+ 6 in process)
Informal agreements 10
Partnerships 8

National conferences supported by both C3P and NCECC are also cited by interviewees for their benefits in educating law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders on key issues related to child sexual exploitation investigations, and in facilitating expertise or providing fora for the exchange of knowledge and best practices. NCECC notes that it has also held bi-annual national meetings with Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) units. NCECC held two conferences in 2009, one national and one international.

APPENDIX E: NCECC’S Contribution to Child Sexual Exploitation Cases

Title Description
Project SWEEP (2008) NCECC fielded numerous complaints from the public through Cybertip.ca and through law enforcement agencies across Canada related to a child modeling site suspected of hosting and/or trading child exploitation material. NCECC started a covert on-line investigation to access and infiltrate the site. As a result of a close collaboration between NCECC the United Kingdom, three targets were identified (in the United kingdom, United States and Canada). NCECC coordinated an investigation in partnership with Winnipeg Police Services, where the target was identified, and the United Kingdom. The suspect was arrested and compilation of seized evidence continues through the collaborating efforts of NCECC and Winnipeg Police Services.
Project SALVO (2009) Involved about 30 law enforcement agencies across Canada. An intelligence analysis was completed and revealed several thousands of unique Canadian IP addresses sharing images. Twenty three investigators from all provinces and territories travelled to NCECC and completed investigative packages. Expert peer-to-peer investigators guided Canadian law enforcement partners and investigators were updated on the latest enhancements in technology and shared best practices. Approximately 80 targets were identified throughout Canada and in excess of 50 individuals were arrested. Forensic examination of data seized could lead to more investigations.
Operation RESCUE (2009) International covert operation in relation to the Website involving like-minded individuals sharing stories of their love of young boys. The investigation took place over a year where each country had online undercover operators chatting in the Website. As a result, the online forum was shut down and 184 offenders were arrested, including two Canadians.
Russel Bray (2009) An undercover investigation was conducted by the German Federal Police regarding the activities of various people on a specific Internet board. The members of this message board were suspected of distributing child sexual abuse material while several members are also suspected of producing child sexual abuse images and/or videos. A Canadian was identified and NCECC sent an investigative package to the Toronto Police Service with regard to Russel Bray. He was arrested.
Operation Snapshot (2012) Aimed to identify online child sex offenders who were accessing, producing, and/or distributing child sexual abuse images and videos across peer-to-peer networks. Developed by NCECC, this project involved the collaborative effort of numerous Canadian policing partners from the Prairies. As a result, one child was rescued and 30 investigations led to numerous charges. Over 100 computers and hard drives were seized along with hundreds of thousands of images.
Baby Alison (2012) In 2012, NCECC was one of several law enforcement agencies/Victim Identification Units involved in the successful identification and rescue of a five year old Canadian girl who had been the victim of sexual abuse and online sexual exploitation over the course of her life. In addition, NCECC's Victim Identification Unit provided investigators with key evidence for the positive identification of two suspects. In 2013, both suspects entered guilty pleas, and were sentenced to 12 years for sexual interference, and for production, distribution, and possession of child pornography. Both were ordered to provide DNA samples for the National DNA Data Bank, and were ordered to be registered in the National Sex Offender Registry (for life).
International Victim Identification Project (2013-ongoing)  An international victim identification project involving various Canadian law enforcement agencies (OPP, Toronto Police Service, Ottawa Police Service, Waterloo Regional Police Service, Sûreté du Québec, and the NCECC) is ongoing. This Project targets an international website with the purpose of identifying victims and contact child sex offenders. To date, the Project team has rescued 11 Canadian children and identified over 100 Canadian targets. Offences include production, possession, accessing and distribution of child pornography.

APPENDIX F: Financial Information

Royal Canadian Mounted Police—Overall NCECC Allocations and Expenditures

ALLOCATIONS1 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13
Salaries 3,639,000 4,236,000 4,436,000 4,736,000 4,736,000
Operations and Maintenance 4,368,900 3,642,300 3,518,900 3,130,200 3,116,200
Capital 254,000 - - - -
Subtotal 8,261,900 7,878,300 7,954,900 7,866,200 7,852,200
Departmental Reallocations2 (172,400) (137,800) (837,000) (563,700) (568,100)
TOTAL 8,089,500 7,740,500 7,117,900 7,302,500 7,284,000
DIRECT PROGRAM SPENDING          
Program Staff          
Salaries:          
Operations 1,300,300 1,865,700 2,296,700 2,210,300 2,253,500
Others (includes training, technology and research 1,643,400 1,880,400 1,495,300 1,894,200 2,199,100
TOTAL SALARIES 2,943,700 3,746,100 3,792,000 4,104,500 4,452,600
Operations and Maintenance:          
TOTAL 1,569,700 1,216,900 2,217,400 1,661,800 1,548,200
Capital 308,700 - - 26,200 -
TOTAL 4,822,100 4,963,000 6,009,400 5,792,500 6,000,800
- - - - -
ALLOCATIONS MINUS EXPENDITURES 3,267,400 2,777,600 1,108,500 1,509,900 1,283,200
VARIANCE 404% 36% 16% 21% 18%

Values in the table are in dollars and have been rounded to the nearest hundred.

Notes:
1. Figures are net and exclude amounts related to Employee Benefits Plan, Public Works and Government Services Canada accommodations and internal services charges.
2. Departmental reallocations include: Deficit reduction action plan, National Police Services Tax, management reallocations, and other Shared Services Canada and Health Canada cuts.

Public Safety Canada—Allocations and Expenditures

ALLOCATION 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13
Salaries 270,000 386,400 386,400 386,400 386,400
Operations and Maintenance 205,000 132,500 202,500 162,500 122,500
Vote 5 1,831,600 1,855,600 1,845,600 1,885,600 1,925,600
TOTAL 2,306,600 2,374,500 2,434,500 2,434,500 2,434,500
DIRECT PROGRAM SPENDING          
Program Staff Salaries up to level of Director 252,900 285,400 322,800 346,100 217,800
DG's Office Salaries 1,500 1,500 2,900 12,200 2,900
Salaries Total - Actuals 254,400 287,000 325,700 358,200 220,700
Operations and Maintenance - Actuals 125,100 55,700 121,800 124,600 170,800
TOTAL - Actuals 379,500 342,700 447,500 482,900 391,600
TRANSFER PAYMENTS (Vote 5)          
Contributions payments 1,729,600 2,189,700 2,277,700 1,926,400 2,174,000
TOTAL DIRECT AND TRANSFER EXPENDITURES 2,109,100 2,532,400 2,725,200 2,409,300 2,565,500
ALLOCATION MINUS EXPENDITURES 197,500 -157,900 -290,800 25,200 -131,000
VARIANCE 9% -7% -12% 1% -5%

Note: Values in the tables are in dollars and have been rounded to the nearest hundred.

Public Safety Canada—Contribution Program Administration Ratio

PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION RATIO 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13
Program Staff          
Salaries 49,100 46,900 36,800 131,400 65,900
Operations and Maintenance       -       -       -       -       -  
Subtotal 49,100 46,900 36,800 131,400 65,900
Director and DG's Office          
Salaries 1,500 1,500 3,600 3,600 3,600
Operations and Maintenance       -       -       -       -       -  
Subtotal   1,500   1,500   3,600   3,600   3,600
TOTAL PROGRAM COST 50,600  48,500 40,400 135,000 69,500
Internal Services          
Salaries 20,200      19,400 16,200  54,000 27,800
Operations and Maintenance          
Subtotal 20,200 19,400 16,200  54,000 27,800
Employee Benefits Plan
(20% of Salary Expenditures)		 14,200  13,600 11,300 37,800 19,500
PWGSC Accommodation Allowance
(13% of Salary Expenditures)		   9,200  8,800   7,400 24,600 12,700
TOTAL PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION COST 94,200 90,200 75,300 251,400 129,400
TRANSFER PAYMENTS (Vote 5)          
Budget 1,831,600 1,855,600 1,845,600 1,885,600 1,925,600
Contributions payments 1,729,600 2,189,700 2,277,700 1,926,400 2,174,000
Budget minus Contribution paid 102,000 -334,100 -432,100 -40,800 -248,400
PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION RATIO          
Annual 5% 4% 3% 13% 6%
Five Year Average         6%

Note: Values in the tables are in dollars and have been rounded to the nearest hundred.

Department of Justice—Allocations and Expenditures

ALLOCATION		 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13
Salaries 121,400 121,400 121,400 121,400 121,400
Operations and Maintenance 38,500 38,500 38,500 38,500 38,500
TOTAL 159,900 159,900 159,900 159,900 159,900
DIRECT PROGRAM SPENDING          
Salaries 122,000 122,000 122,000 124,700 126,300
Operations and Maintenance 38,500 38,500 38,500 38,500 38,500
TOTAL 160,500 160,500 160,500 163,200 164,800
ALLOCATION MINUS EXPENDITURES -600 -600 -600 -3,300 -4,800
VARIANCE 0% 0% 0% -2% -3%

Note: Values in the tables are in dollars and have been rounded to the nearest hundred.

Footnotes

  1. 1

    Initially, Industry Canada received financial support to forge partnerships with industry and non-government organizations and developing public awareness and education material. In April 2007, Industry Canada could no longer sustain its activities and the funding for the 2007 to 2009 period was re-directed to Cybertip.ca to enhance responsibilities related to public awareness and education components of the National Strategy.

  2. 2

    It should be noted that efforts to combat human trafficking were not part of the 2004 National Strategy though they have been a focus of the federal government for some time and are now part of Canada's National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking, launched in June 2012.

  3. 3

    Industry Canada is no longer a partner of the National Strategy and thus, is not included in the scope of the evaluation.

  4. 4

    Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights (2011). The Sexual Exploitation of Children in Canada: The Need for National Action.

  5. 5

    Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime (2009). Every Image, Every Child: Internet-Facilitated Child Sexual Abuse in Canada.

  6. 6

    Canadian Centre for Child Protection (2012). Cybertip.ca: A 10-Year Review of Canada's Tipline for Reporting the Online Sexual Exploitation of Children

  7. 7

    Virtual Global Taskforce (2012). Environmental Scan.

  8. 8

    Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime (2009). Every Image, Every Child: Internet-Facilitated Child Sexual Abuse in Canada.

  9. 9

    Institute of Health Economics (2010). Sexual Exploitation of Children and Youth Over the Internet: A Rapid Review of the Scientific Literature.

  10. 10

    Ontario Provincial Police. Fact Sheet Child Pornography and Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation on the Internet

  11. 11

    Canadian Centre for Child Protection (2012). Cybertip.ca A 10-Year Review of Canada's Tipline for Reporting the Online Sexual Exploitation of Children.

  12. 12

    Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime (2009). Every Image, Every Child Backgrounder (refers to the Internet Watch Foundation; Jonah Rimer, Literature Review-Responding to Child & Youth victims of Sexual Exploitation on the Internet, 2007).

  13. 13

    Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime (2009). Every Image, Every Child: Internet-Facilitated Child Sexual Abuse in Canada (refers to Jonah Rimer, Literature Review—Responding to Child & Youth Victims of Sexual Exploitation on the Internet, 2007, p. 32 and to Dr. Michael Bourke and Andres Hernandez, “The Butner Study Redux: A Report of the Incidence of Hands-On Child Victimization by Child Pornography Offenders,” (in press), pp. 17–18.).

  14. 14

    Virtual Global Taskforce (2012). Environmental Scan.

  15. 15

    Virtual Global Taskforce Website. http://www.virtualglobaltaskforce.com/2013/study-finds-cooperation-is-key-to-fighting-online-child-abuse/

  16. 16

    Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights (2011). The Sexual Exploitation of Children in Canada: The Need for National Action.

  17. 17

    Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime (2009). Every Image, Every Child: Internet-Facilitated Child Sexual Abuse in Canada.

  18. 18

    Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights (2011). The Sexual Exploitation of Children in Canada: The Need for National Action.

  19. 19

    Office of the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime (2009). Every Image, Every Child: Internet-Facilitated Child Sexual Abuse in Canada.

  20. 20

    Subsection 91(27) of the Constitution Act, 1867.

  21. 21

    Provincial legislative authority regarding policing is found in subsection 92(14) of the Constitution Act, 1867, which outlines provincial legislative jurisdiction with respect to the administration of justice.

  22. 22

    Royal Canadian Mounted Police (2013). Operation Snapshot II: Two Children Rescued and Millions of Child Exploitation Images Seized.

  23. 23

    Office of the Auditor General (2011). 2011 June Status Report of the Auditor General of Canada, Chapter 5—National Police Services—Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

  24. 24

    Royal Canadian Mounted Police (2012). National Police Services: Building a Sustainable Future.

  25. 25

    Based on information available on provincial and territorial Websites.

  26. 26

    One report might include several incidents or classifications (e.g. child pornography and making sexually explicit material available to a child).

  27. 27

    One report might include several incidents or classifications (e.g. child pornography and making sexually explicit material available to a child).

  28. 28

    Canadian Centre for Child Protection (2012). Cybertip.ca A 10-Year Review of Canada's Tipline for Reporting the Online Sexual Exploitation of Children.

  29. 29

    Five other awareness campaigns were conducted through other sources of funding (i.e. not funded under the National Strategy).

  30. 30

    Project Spade was a Toronto Police-led investigation that resulted in the rescue of hundreds of victims and the arrest of hundreds of individuals in Canada and worldwide.

  31. 31

    Some reports may be sent to several law enforcement agencies.

  32. 32

    A report would be deemed non-actionable if it could not be forwarded on to a law enforcement agency in Canada or internationally due to various reasons (for example, lack of information, lack of evidence of a criminal offence).

  33. 33

    97% of the reports deal with child pornography (offences or Websites).

  34. 34

    Most requests are for the provision of Administrative Subpoenas and other requests for assistance, including victim identification assistance and coordination of multi-jurisdictional investigations.

  35. 35

    The NCECC received the majority of its reports during the time of the evaluation from the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in the US.

  36. 36

    This is a voluntary process agreed upon by Internet Service Providers and law enforcement through the Canadian Coalition against Internet Child Exploitation, chaired by C3P, and including NCECC, PS and Justice. It should be noted that since the conduct of the evaluation, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in the case of R. v. Spencer that Internet Service Providers were not to disclose subscriber information in the absence of a search warrant obtained with judicial authorization.

  37. 37

    Involved 10 law enforcement agencies, namely Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) units from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Saskatoon Police Service, Regina Police Service, Prince Albert Police Service, Winnipeg Police Service, as well as four RCMP divisions (Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Northwest Territories and Nunavut).

  38. 38

    Involved 9 law enforcement agencies, namely the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary, Halifax Regional Police, Cape Breton Regional Police, Charlottetown Police Service, and Springhill Police Service) and four RCMP divisions (Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island).

  39. 39

    Involved approximately 35 law enforcement agencies in eight provinces (except Prince Edward Island and Alberta) and one territory (Northwest Territories).

  40. 40

    This victim identification tool was developed as part of Project S.A.V.E. (System for Advancing Victim Identification Efforts), which aimed to provide the 190 INTERPOL member countries with the technical equipment and expertise to operate the tool.

  41. 41

    Educational materials are designed to be age-specific and aimed at key target audiences (including children and parents, students and school personnel). They include: Mobile Safety Guide; Respect Yourself Booklets; Zoe and Molly Comics and Teacher Kit; Billy Brings His Buddies Teacher Kits; Be Smart, Strong and Safe activity booklets; The Door that's not Locked info card, Internet safety sheets and posters.

  42. 42

    Based on nine educational Websites. Downloads are tracked by the number of pdf files accessed and downloaded from the Cybertip.ca Website.

  43. 43

    Page views do not constitute unique visitors.

  44. 44

    Programs evaluated are: Teatree Tells Pilot Evaluation; Commit to Kids Community Pilot Evaluation; Teacher Evaluation on Billy Brings His Buddies; Commit to Kids - Phases I & II - smaller child-serving organizations; Teacher Evaluation on Zoe and Molly.

  45. 45

    These evaluations were conducted by C3P rather than 3rd parties. The objectivity and validity of these evaluations could not be verified from the examples provided, thus some caution must be exercised in interpreting the results.

  46. 46

    The Zoe and Molly activities are designed to help parents and educators to teach kids how to stay safe online and about the risks of sharing personal information over the Internet

  47. 47

    N=163 in 8 provinces.

  48. 48

    This program is designed for use by teachers, parents and educators and includes age appropriate lessons (4-6 years of age) to establish open communication with children and establishing an understanding of boundaries so children know what to disclose, thereby increasing the likelihood of disclosure. The pilot program was designed to address gaps in the area of prevention.

  49. 49

    Project Spade was a Toronto Police-led investigation that resulted in the rescue of hundreds of victims and the arrest of hundreds of individuals in Canada and worldwide.

  50. 50

    The Commit to Kids Program is also funded by the Department of Justice’s Victims Fund under a separate initiative (not under the National Strategy).

  51. 51

    Evaluation was conducted with directors/managers and 37 employees of seven child serving organizations in Manitoba.

  52. 52

    The ACCET program aims to encourage service delivery to communities based on a “train the trainer” model that brings together key service providers, trains them on areas of Internet safety, enhances their roles as knowledge-holders in their communities and encourages them to educate their colleagues and clients.

  53. 53

    The Smart & Safe program aimed to provide information to teens and parents about the dangers of online child sexual exploitation and to engage with community workers in culturally diverse communities in the Surrey/Delta region and lower mainland of British Columbia.

  54. 54

    Five (5) police services (Ottawa, Saanich, Saskatoon, Sûreté du Québec and Toronto) and a federal agency (CBSA) have signed secondment assignments with NCECC.

  55. 55

    Other individuals may also have been arrested and other victims rescued in other countries as a result of these investigations. In order to avoid duplication between figures reported by NCECC and Cybertip.ca, these numbers do not include individuals arrested and victims rescued as part of Project Spade, presented below.

  56. 56

    It should also be noted that the number of children rescued does not include those children removed from abusive situations where there was no arrest. Furthermore, in order to avoid duplication between figures reported by NCECC and Cybertip.ca, these numbers do not include individuals arrested and victims rescued as part of Project Spade.

  57. 57

    Charges include: Accessing Child Pornography, Possession of Child Pornography, Making Available Child Pornography, Making Child Pornography, and voyeurism.

  58. 58

    Sites hosted in Canada are investigated by Canadian law enforcement agencies.

  59. 59

    Through the Canadian Coalition against Internet Child Exploitation, Cleanfeed Canada is a partnership between Cybertip.ca and Canada's major Internet Service Providers aimed at reducing accidental access to child sexual abuse images and discouraging those trying to access or distribute them. Cybertip.ca maintains a list of foreign-hosted Internet addresses (URLs) associated with images of child sexual abuse, which is provided to participating Internet service providers whose filters then automatically deny access to the listed sites.

  60. 60

    Unique and non-unique URLs.

  61. 61

    Research topics are determined by patterns within reporting and/or needs or issues identified through interaction and consultation with partners such as law enforcement agencies, educators, Crown prosecutors, and governments.

  62. 62

    Co-funded by Bell Canada. Cybertip.ca (2009). Child Sexual Abuse Images: An Analysis of Websites by Cybertip.ca.

  63. 63

    Cybertip.ca (2012). Luring, Grooming and Online Exploitation: An Analysis of Reports of Problematic Engagement with Youth.

  64. 64

    RCMP (2010). Environmental Scan on IT Enabled Sexual Exploitation of Children and Youth.

  65. 65

    RCMP (2011). Study on Canadian Travelling Child Sex Offenders.

  66. 66

    The NCECC implemented a tracking matrix, which allows for reporting in the latter years.

  67. 67

    Assessing Program Resource Utilization When Evaluating Federal Programs, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, p. 1

  68. 68

    The review consisted of an extensive online search (major search engines as well as specialized academic portals) and analysis of peer-reviewed publications and articles, materials and Website content focusing on the socio-economic impact (cost/benefit) of child sexual abuse.

  69. 69

    Institute of Health Economics (2010). Sexual Exploitation of Children and Youth Over the Internet: A Rapid Review of the Scientific Literature, p.33-34.

  70. 70

    Miller, Ted R., Mark A. Cohen and Brian Wiersema (1995), “Victim Costs and Consequences: A New Look”, p.1.

  71. 71

    Shanahan, Martin and Ron Donato (2001). “Counting the cost: Estimating the economic benefit of pedophile treatment programs”, p.547-548.

  72. 72

    Bowlus, Audra, Katherine McKenna, Tanis Day and David Wright (2003). The Economic Costs and Consequences of Child Abuse in Canada, p.iv & 91-92.

  73. 73

    Hankivsky, Olena and D. A. Draker (2003). “The economic costs of child sexual abuse in Canada: a preliminary analysis”, p.1.

  74. 74

    Minnesota Department of Health. “How Much Does Sexual Violence Cost?”, p.15.

  75. 75

    Reeve, Rebecca and Kees van Gool (2013). “Modelling the Relationship between Child Abuse and Long-Term Health Care Costs and Wellbeing: Results from an Australian Community-Based Survey”, p.305.

  76. 76

    MacMillan, Ross (2000). “Adolescent victimization and income deficits in adulthood: Rethinking the costs of criminal violence from a life-course perspective”.

  77. 77

    Hankivsky, Olena and D. A. Draker (2003). Op. Cit., p.8.

  78. 78

    Institute of Health Economics. Op. Cit., p.34.

  79. 79

    Allocative efficiency: This perspective on efficiency is generally concerned with the big picture of whether the resources consumed in the achievement of outcomes was reasonable in light of issues such as the degree of outcome achievement, the program's context and the alternatives to the existing program.

  80. 80

    Assessing Program Resource Utilization When Evaluating Federal Programs, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, p. 6-7

  81. 81

    It is noted that the evaluation team did not focus the analysis on the research outputs of the RCMP or policy/legislative advice delivered by Justice and PS. These outputs were considered less material in terms of financial impact to the Strategy as a whole.

  82. 82

    Reports and requests that would not result in the production of an investigative package were excluded; therefore, numbers are lower than those presented in section 4.2.2. The evaluation was not able to determine whether the files that did not result in an investigative package are ongoing, backlogged or were concluded otherwise.

  83. 83

    Public Safety Canada (2008). 2008-2009 Summative Evaluation of the National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet.

  84. 84

    The estimate was prepared by dividing the total contributions paid to C3P into two categories: “triage” (Cybertip.ca) and “education and awareness”.

  85. 85

    Note that the federal government is not the only contributor to awareness outputs; thus contribution/output is not a true cost but represents the PS contribution amount.

  86. 86

    As outlined in Treasury Board guidance, operational efficiency generally focuses on the relationship between resources and outputs. This perspective on efficiency is largely concerned with how inputs are being used and converted into outputs that support the achievement of intended outcomes

  87. 87

    The program administration ratio refers to the total program administration cost as a percentage of the contribution paid in a given year.

  88. 88

    In this analysis, allocations included salaries, operations and maintenance, vote 5 and capital amounts that were allocated to Departments to achieve intended outcomes. The analysis did not include Employee Benefits Plan or Public Works and Government Services Canada accommodation amounts.

  89. 89

    Public Safety Canada (2008). 2008-2009 Summative Evaluation of the National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet.

  90. 90

    Public Safety Canada (2008). 2008-2009 Summative Evaluation of the National Strategy for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation on the Internet.

  91. 91

    Cleanfeed Canada is a partnership between Cybertip.ca and Canada's major Internet Service Providers aimed at reducing accidental access to child sexual abuse images and discouraging those trying to access or distribute them. Cybertip.ca maintains a regularly updated list of specific foreign-hosted Internet addresses (URLs) associated with images of child sexual abuse, which is provided in a secure manner to participating ISPs whose filters then automatically deny access to the listed sites.

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