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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Technology
Jack Schofield

Blogging 'a paedophile's dream'

"Online journals and camera phones are a 'paedophiles' dream' which have increased the risk to children, the Scottish Parliament has been warned," says a BBC News report.

Rachel O'Connell said adults could use weblogs to learn about children.

Dr O'Connell said that the emergence of moblogs - mobile weblogs - allowed even faster transfer of pictures to the internet using mobile telephones with cameras.

She said: "This is just a paedophile's dream because you have children uploading pictures, giving out details of their everyday life because it's an online journal."

The psychologist, whose research and work with police and other agencies has included posing as a child on internet newsgroups, said predatory adults could use an RSS feeder program - a syndication tool - to be instantly e-mailed any picture when it was added to a blogging site.

"The parameters of grooming are now about to alter whereby they don't necessarily have to have contact with the child," she said.



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