Although total crime in the Czech Republic fell by 1.9 percent last year to roughly 170,000 crimes, crimes in cyberspace are increasing year by year. While the year before last, the police received reports of 18,495 acts in the online space, last year their number was already 21,137 and they made up almost 12.5 percent of all recorded cases.
The numbers show that children and teenagers also play a role in the increase in Internet crime. The number of registered acts in which minors were the victims was 474 last year. In 2024, there were approximately sixty fewer.
Acts committed by children and young people under the age of eighteen also more than doubled, from 235 to 587 year-on-year.
According to Zuzana Pidrmanová from the prevention department of the Police Presidium, the most common acts include the misuse of digital traces in connection with cyberbullying and revenge porn, i.e. sharing photos and videos with intimate material without consent, for example after breaking up with a partner, or their misuse in “undressing” applications.
“There is also sextortion, i.e. blackmail through intimate materials, such as photos or videos,” Pidrmanová described.
Photos are shared by parents
Pidrmanová described unsecured albums with children’s, often intimate, photos as very problematic. At the same time, children are created by their parents from an early age, who can subsequently abuse the digital trail. And their number is alarming – according to experts, seven out of ten legal representatives regularly share information about their children on the Internet.
It often starts with a photo from the ultrasound, which is placed on social networks even before the birth. But even from such a picture, according to the police, a surprising amount of information can be read, such as the mother’s personal data, hospital or clinic identification number, date and time of examination or information about the fetus.
Subsequently, almost ten percent of parents add a photo to the network immediately after birth, and another 23 percent publish a photo of their offspring in the first year of life. By the age of five, content about more than 45 percent of children was shared on the Internet. This is the result of a survey by Palacký University as part of the E-Safety project, in which 2,481 parents from all over the country participated.
According to the police, it is also worrisome that a third of parents share content that includes the children of other parents without their consent. The reason for sharing is most often an effort to maintain contact with the family, to show off the child to friends, to show how the child is progressing, or to record his interesting moments.
“For parents, it’s about sharing beautiful memories, but it’s important to keep in mind that the online environment is a relatively anonymous space where posted content can be misused,” added T-Mobile sustainability expert Simona Drízhalová.
There is also a risk of identity theft
Once information or photos of children are posted online, parents lose some control over how that information is disseminated. They can be misused not only for criminality in cyberspace, but can also cause problems in the real world, for example in identity theft.
