As digital sex crimes cross borders and even exploit artificial intelligence (AI), the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia are expanding their response measures from investigative agencies' 'legal hacking' to the platform's risk assessment obligations.
If the illegal website server is located overseas, there are also measures in place to ensure both the effectiveness of the investigation and the protection of basic rights, such as requiring consent from the relevant country and limiting the purpose and scope of hacking authority with a warrant.
According to Yonhap News coverage on the 26th, there were 21,351,493 reports of child sexual exploitation materials filed with the Cyber โโReporting Center of the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) last year. Of these, more than 400,000 were reports of sexual exploitation related to generative artificial intelligence (AI).
By type, possession, production, and distribution of sexually exploitative material accounted for the majority with 19,514,872 cases, followed by online grooming with 1,413,347 cases, transmission of pornography with 253,812 cases, and human trafficking for prostitution and sexual exploitation with 113,530 cases.
Digital sex crimes are continuing in the UK and Australia.
Last year alone, the UK's Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) received 451,210 reports of suspected child sexual exploitation material.
This is a 6.4% increase from 2024 (424,047 cases). In particular, reports of AI child sexual exploitation materials increased by 154.4% from 193 cases in 2024 to 491 cases last year, and 8,029 sexual exploitation materials created with AI were confirmed.
The Australian Child Exploitation Response Center (ACCCE) also received 82,764 reports of child sexual exploitation last year.
The three countries are making various efforts to respond to these ongoing digital sex crimes.
According to a study on 'Active cyber defense technology policies and legislation trends for illegal sites such as child and adolescent sexual exploitation videos' conducted by the Korea IT Law Research Institute at the request of the National Police Agency, these are representative countries that have an 'active defense system'.
The active defense system, which Korea is also preparing to introduce under the name of 'emergency remote access investigation', is also called legal hacking as it is a method in which investigative agencies directly access illegal sites to collect clues and delete original data.
Since it goes beyond blocking access to illegal sites and removes sexual exploitation material itself, it is possible to solve the fundamental problem. However, it is only allowed on a limited and supplementary basis due to the possibility of violating freedom of communication and abuse of investigative rights.
The UK and Australia regulate legal hacking through a warrant system so that it can only be used for specific purposes, such as controlling criminal accounts, neutralizing and accessing illegal site networks, and changing and deleting data.
Australia divides warrants into 'data disruption', 'network activity', and 'account takeover warrants' and prohibits investigations beyond the intended purpose.
For example, even if a warrant to seize an account has been issued, it is impossible to communicate with members through the seized account.
Considering the purpose of the investigation, hacking warrants have a longer validity period than other warrants. In the UK, the maximum period is 6 months, and an extension of 6 months is possible only once.
Australia also has a post-approval system where a warrant can be requested within 48 hours of hacking only in cases of urgent need.
Due to the nature of digital sex crimes that are not restricted by borders, it is also important to establish the necessary procedures to prevent legal hacking from turning into a diplomatic issue.
For example, Australia stipulates that before taking control of an illegal site with a server in another country, it must obtain official consent from the relevant country's relevant agency.
Another characteristic feature is that it responds to digital sex crimes through public-private cooperation. The United States has expanded the scope of existing communications warrants to include legal hacking, and is also involving private platforms in Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) operations.
Prior to such a compulsory investigation, the UK enacts the Online Safety Act in 2023 and obliges platform operators to take appropriate measures, such as assessing risk of harmfulness and reporting and deleting the results.
The Korea IT Law Institute emphasized, "From the victim's perspective, what is as important as punishing the perpetrator is preventing the video from being distributed," and added, "Future legislation should be made in a direction that simultaneously achieves the effectiveness of preventing the spread of damage and the strictness of protecting basic rights."
