New Malaysian police unit to monitor citizens who watch pornography online

KUALA LUMPUR — A new police unit, equipped with the latest technology right out of Mission Impossible movies, has been recently set up to sniff out online pornography.

Sexual, Women and Child Investigation Division (D11) principal assistant director Assistant Commissioner Ong Chin Lan told the New Straits Times that the sole remit of the newly-launched Malaysia Internet Crime Against Children Investigation Unit (Micac) was to monitor traffic at pornographic websites, especially those offering child porn.

It would locate and pinpoint in real time, 24/7, Internet users surfing these sites and build a "data library" of these individuals — what portals they frequent, how long they spend on the sites, and the files they upload and download — that will help the authorities in prosecuting them.

The division, she added, would work towards enhancing its system and expanding its coverage to include those who surfed pornography.

"We will pick up those who visit these sites regularly. We use a software that was specially developed to allow us to identify, locate and track visits to porn sites, especially those involving child porn.

"The intelligence we get will be passed on to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), so we can obtain the Internet users' details.

"We will then call them in for questioning or we may even arrest them at their homes or wherever," she said.

The new software was so advanced that it could even detect those who surfed and downloaded porn from what they thought was the relative safety of their handphones.

The NST was shown the monitoring software, known as the Internet Crime Against Children — Child Online Protective Services (ICACCOPS).

The programme, developed in the United States, would, among others, show the porn user's IP address, location, the name of the website where he uploaded or downloaded pornographic material, the actual time the user surfed the sites and the duration spent.

Officers handling the system were required to log in their registered credentials.

The system would show in real time the Internet Protocol address (IP) of those surfing porn in balloon markers, and the websites they surfed.

At the time the NST was given a tour of the system, which was around noon, the computer monitors were lit up and peppered with multi-coloured balloon markers indicating the location of some 2,500 IPs nationwide that were uploading or downloading pornographic material.

The balloon markers were divided into seven colours, each indicating the file-sharing platform being used to share explicit contents.

Assistant Commissioner Ong said data from a report by the Dutch police identified close to 20,000 IP addresses in Malaysia actively uploading and downloading explicit images and footage of minors.

The report also established that Malaysia had the highest number of people uploading and downloading child pornography.

Assistant Commissioner Ong said Micac had the power to seize handphones, computers or laptops to check for pornographic material.

"It is an offence (under Section 292 of the Penal Code) to download or upload pornographic material. Now, with the unit ready to go, we can seize and confiscate handphones, for example, for inspection. This will be done on a case-by-case basis.

"I am sending my officers overseas for training, and we have the support from the United States' Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

She cited one case where D11 arrested a 20-year-old man, who downloaded and sold pornographic material in exchange for game points.

"We received a tip-off from our counterparts in Taiwan that the individual had created a file with about 30 folders containing child porn material, and had put them up for sale in Taiwan.

"We arrested him and charged him under Section 292 of the Penal Code. He was fined RM1,400 for the two files he had," she said.

Meanwhile, MCMC's network security, new media monitoring, compliance and advocacy sector chief Dr Fadhlullah Suhaimi Abdul Malek said the commission had blocked 3,781 pornographic websites from 2014 until the end of March.

Dr Fadhlullah said the commission's collaboration with the police extended beyond monitoring pornographic websites.

It included information and intelligence exchange, joint training, as well as collaboration in digital forensics.

Asked how MCMC monitored explicit websites, Dr Fadhlullah said it was done on the principle of "Internetwork", where websites were linked and connected with other websites, particularly those with similar content.

"This is one of the key principles in locating and identifying pornographic websites out there," he said. THE NEW STRAITS TIMES