A Scott County man’s arrest on child pornography charges by the Indiana State Police is the latest sign of a growing trend reported by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
ISP detectives executed a search warrant early Tuesday in Scottsburg, where they seized a computer that allegedly contained child pornography.
Tyler S. Tscheulin, 23, of Scottsburg, was arrested and charged with possession of child pornography and dissemination of child pornography. He is incarcerated at the Scott County Jail awaiting his first court appearance.
The search warrant was the result of a tip received by the ISP from the NCMEC.
Sgt. Jerry Goodin, ISP public information officer, said this sort of reporting has become quite routine.
“If they see something that needs to be looked into, they flag it and they send it to us and say, ‘Hey, listen, we’ve got this information,’†he said.
Lindsay Olson, director of the Exploited Child Division at NCMEC, said these sorts of tips are sent to their CyberTipline by the public and electronic service providers.
Olson said companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Google are mandated by law to report child pornography, online enticement of children for sexual acts and child sex trafficking. Passed in 1998, 42 U.S.C. § 13032 requires anyone engaged in providing an electronic communication service to the public who obtains knowledge of a violation of the child pornography statutes to report such violation to the NCMEC. Failure to report is subject to a fine of up to $50,000 in the first instance and $100,000 subsequently. No service provider may be held civilly liable for any action taken in good faith to comply with the reporting requirement.
“They do not have to search for it, it’s just when they’re made aware of it they need to then submit a report,†Olson said. “However, many of the companies do engage in voluntary, proactive measures to locate that content on their system and then report it to the CyberTipline. Companies don’t want this type of content on their platform.â€
Olson said once a report is received, the information is passed along to relevant law enforcement agencies in that area. More than 12.7 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation were made to the CyberTipline between its launch in March 1998 and June 2016.
The number of these reports has increased exponentially in the past few years. In 2017 alone, 10.2 million reports were received, up from 8.2 million in 2016, 4.4 million in 2015 and 1.1 million in 2014.
For more information on the CyberTipline or to file a report, visit www.cybertipline.com or call 800-843-5678.
