Police warn parents about kid-friendly Kik app; gives predators direct online access to children
Police say many parents have 'no clue' about potential dangers. Parents need to be more aware of what apps their children are using and how they work.
While there are safety concerns with other apps, police and users say Kik is particularly popular with younger teens and children whose parents may not be as familiar with it as they are with social media sites like Facebook and Instagram.
Kik Interactive Inc, the company that created it seven years ago in Waterloo, Ont., says it has 275 million users who are on the app for an average of 35 minutes per session.
“The problem I have with Kik in particular is the ability for strangers to reach out to strangers,” said Det.-Sgt. Paul Krawczyk of the Toronto Police Service’s child exploitation unit.
Unlike many other messaging apps, Kik offers free, unlimited texting, along with games featuring animated characters and juvenile emojis which appeal to kids.
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Kik also allows users to send messages directly to other users, without first approving them on a friend or contact list.
Police say there’s a lack of parental checks and controls with Kik, and some other apps, which is one of the reasons predators are drawn to them.
Just last week, a man in Richmond, B.C., was convicted for distributing child pornography and internet luring.
Police say Stephen Reha convinced at least four girls between the ages of 13 to 16 whom he met on Kik to send him explicit photos of themselves. He then distributed the photos to other people who had the app.
“We have lots of investigations involving Kik,” said Krawczyk, who has worked on cases with children as young as eight years old.
“It’s not just KiK,” he noted. “If they’re not using KiK they’ll find something else.”
Recently, Kik has been cited in numerous criminal investigations throughout North America, with law enforcement officials and educators warning of its potential dangers.
In the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking at what role Kik may have played in the recent kidnapping and slaying of a 13-year-old girl from Virginia.
An 18-year-old man who allegedly targeted Nicole Lovell on Kik has been charged, along with a female accomplice, in the teen’s killing.
Clueless parents
Krawczyk feels parents need to be more aware of what apps their children are using and how they work.
He recalled a recent case involving an eight-year-old girl who sent “inappropriate pictures” to a stranger. When he asked the girl’s parents for her password, Krawczyk said they had to ask their daughter to tell them what it was.
“It is the most frustrating part of my job — parents who have no clue what their kids are doing,” he said.
He encourages parents to let children know they should tell someone if they receive random messages from people they don’t know.
“If your child does get in a situation hopefully they’ll feel comfortable enough to come to you and say: ‘I got in over my head … can you look at this?’ And we’ve had that, and that’s good,” he said.
Read more: cbc.ca
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