Germany is following the money by using credit card data to crack down on child porn viewers. Fourteen Germany-based credit card companies voluntarily handed over customer transaction details to German police identifying child pornography users.
Saxony-Anhalt State Interior Minister Holger Hoevelmann told reporters the credit card companies reviewed more than 22 million customer transactions looking for payments going to child pornography websites. In an undercover operation codenamed “Mikado,” 322 people were arrested for child pornography violations.
German privacy laws provide limited access to credit card users database information predicated on narrow search criteria. What was asked for was: a specific amount of money, during a specific time period, and a specific receiver account. A child pornography website based in the Philippines was targeted.
“The commercial market for child pornography has clearly motivated the most heinous abuse of children imaginable, so it is vital to stop the flow of money that makes CP a profitable enterprise for criminals,” commented Rick Louis, manager of communications and government affairs for the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection. “It’s important to remember that all credit card companies and payment processors already prohibit and investigate illegal activity and violations of their own terms of service.”
The Baden-Wurrtemberg district attorney’s office has handled more than 800 child pornography cases in 2006.
