Is this police training action at DD(14) school really bizarre, bordering on inappropriate, or completely fine and normal?

[questionzzz]

This is kind of preying on my mind.
A local police officer made a fake instagram account impersonating a teen from a (different) local school, and sent "friends requests" to a bunch of students at the local high where DD goes. Some of them accepted, despite not knowing the person who had sent them the request- one of them being one of DD's friends.
So this officer saw what these schoolkids are posting on their (private) accounts. DD's friend posts a lot, including pics of herself in clothes showing cleavage. Apparently, according to DDfriend, the police officer subsequently approached her, told her that the pics were inappropriate- these pics were subsequently deleted from the account. This happened to several students (dunno if just girls targeted, or boys too) On Thursday (yesterday), the officer addressed the whole school, told them about this instagram experiment, how dangerous social media was, talked to them about sexting and sending nudes and the fact that it is illegal at their age, told them how a boy two years above than them, super smart with a great future etc, had showed nudes of his gf to other boys and was now in prison, his whole life ruined before it started, on the sex offender's registry.

The speech seemed to have backfired, because as far as I can tell, the kids seem to have more sympathy with the boy in the police officer's story?

Anyway- the speech wasn't that bad if heavy-handed, and I'm all on board for training about social media- , but the whole instagram experiment thing? I can't seem to wrap my head around it. It seems- over-zealous? Right now, it's become a bit of creepy joke with DD and her friends- I heard them going through their accounts "ooo that one would be banned FOR SUUURE"

what do you think?

Great Piece of Crime Prevention work by the cop.Is he a School Liason Officer? Wish there were more of them!

Sounds like an old person trying to get down with the 'yoof'. It would have been better if he had just come in with a detailed explication of what constituted various offences and what the maximum sentences would be.

So this officer saw what these schoolkids are posting on their (private) accounts.

They made it not private by accepting the friend request!

Just a thought..would it have made a difference if the cop was female...just sayin

Nicknacky, I also said everything should be done with the knowledge and cooperation of the school.

Ahhh..OP hasn’t stated the sex of the cop..we just all assumed it was a male cop..😏

He is probably a school based police officer, not just a random cop that has decided to do this on his spare time!

IANAL but surely no teenager in the world ever actually went to prison for showing his mate a nude photo of his actual girlfriend which had been freely shared with him

Depends on the age of the teen, the age of the child in the photo and the nature of the photo. I would imagine the kids exaggerated the story and the teen was merely arrested.

Lots of cases of teens being cautioned or at least logged on police intel systems for sharing child porn they have made.

OP was the cop male or female?

helio you are thinking of the friends looking over the boy's shoulder. If he shared the image / nude pic to their account and the girlfriend is underage, that is copying and distributing lewd images of a minor, which is an offence in the UK. It isn't outside the realms of possibility it is also illegal in Canada. If there is a 'revenge porn' element or age gap it's easy to see how it becomes an imprisonable offence.

I'm also in Canada and where I live the police have a close relationship with schools with an assigned officer in a liaison role. They have done lots of work on social media issues including addressing bullying (mostly at primary) and sexting (at secondary). They run talks for parents and do assemblies for kids. I can imagine this sort of exercise working well because unfortunately children can do dumb things and get caught in very difficult situations.

It really doesn't matter whether the children sympathised with the sexter or his victim if they are now aware that sending nude pictures of yourself or anyone else can lead to a whole load of trouble that's a good thing. There have been some very tragic stories in Canada where children accepted as friends very nasty people who then persuaded then to take sexy pics that they then used as blackmail. At least one of those children killed themselves. Better to be aware of the danger and not accept unknown people as friends and be very very careful about the pictures you take or let others take of you.

However if it was more along the lines of slut shaming that's an issue. Photos showing cleavage is really not a big problem, although not the best if it's publicly available and your next employer does a search.

Our old school did this.
Searched the kids names and screenshot photographs, nothing rude but they were identifying where they lived or what school they went to or where they were on holiday. There were some showing them with alcohol or smoking underage and a couple of beach shots.

They showed them in the Internet safety assembly on the big screen with parents and kids...

Heliophilous.. We don’t know enough about the circumstances..teenager concerned was maybe a repeat offender, already on the sex offenders register..who knows?..In any case the cop was maybe just trying to steer the kids away from making huge mistakes ..once it’s out there..it’s out there and all that?

I don't know whether the school knew or not- but I am assuming they must have.

Should also clarify that, according to DD, it was a police woman who talked to her friend, and then later to the school. The fake account was pretending to be a local boy.

Dunno if only targeting girls or boys too.

FWIW, to DD, I was all clearly on the side of the police/school. I am only expressing any doubts I have about how useful and effective this was here, in the privacy (LOL) of the internet.

My remark about police state- we have close family ties to a notorious police state (not Turkey) where women's bodies and clothes ARE heavily policed. In fact, that was one of DD's comments (are we in the Middle east now?) Of course I said not the same thing AT ALL. But I can see where that comment came from.

DD's friend who was censured by the policewoman- her pic was showing cleavage- not illegal, if inappropriate.

PP made a point about accepting friend requests- all the school kids I know, have something like 500+ friends on insta. It is a sign of popularity etc. DD is sad bc she "only" has 200ish. If this fake friend request had shown up for her, and it was already "friended" by a couple of her closer friends, she very well might have friended "him", assuming he was their friend. They are "friends" with the whole school, people who have moved away, ppl they were in camps together, distant family etc etc.

As re "where are the parents"- the mom of DD's friend has a lucrative hobby as a make-up blogger, with (fairly good) good blog about local make-up deal etc. Lots of online "presence". Don't think she will be discouraging her child from social media (no judgement implied). Dunno about the others.

Community police are always being asked by schools to deliver training to school children about online safety. In many cases i don’t think they necessarily have the right safeguarding experience or knowledge of the relevant legislation to deliver training of the standard you might want. As a child protection trainer I’ve heard of some extremely clumsy attempts by officers - although no doubt extremely well meaning. On this occasion the session sounds impactive but probably not the direction I would have gone if I’d been running the session. That being said I think anything that’s done to highlight online safety has to be a good thing. I’m pretty curious as to how nonchalant the OP is regarding the content of the 14 year olds Instagram account. The fact that these kids accepted a request from a stranger online and that they have content in their accounts considered inappropriate seems to be dismissed in favour of criticising a police officer making a very valid point. This time it was a police officer next time it could be so much more sinister. YABU

You Canadians make very good points! Revenge Porn is has only really been addressed in the UK over the past 5 years and the legislation is even slower🙄

Oh and it's the distribution that's illegal (so OK to have a pic on your own device, but not to send/share it with others). We had a case in my children's school. The youth concerned were initially arrested for distribution of child pornography but eventually were sentenced for harassment and got community service type sentences.

So it's achieved the point. Your daughter would probably accept the request because they have mutual friends, now hopefully she will think twice.

Nooka - good that Canadian cops are able to work closely with schools. Here their numbers are cut and pressures (including paperwork) increased so they're unlikely to have time to establish good relationships with schools.

Oh and it's the distribution that's illegal (so OK to have a pic on your own device, but not to send/share it with others)

Is the law different in Canada then?

Because in the UK, it's illegal to posses indecent images of anyone under the age of18, whether you distribute them or not.

I can’t believe all the people on this thread going on about the police officer being a creepy fucker.

@SpritedLondon- How I dealt with my daughter and her insta is not the topic I would wish to debate here. As I clarified later, TO HER, I was firmly on the side of the police/school.

HAVING SAID THAT, I do have some (unknown to DD) concerns about how the issue was handled - IN PARTICULAR the friend being warned off posting cleavage. basically all the girls I see on DD's "feed" have posted pictures of themselves at the beach/swimming pool which could be considered inappropriate (swimsuits (gasps)), and if they had accepted this random friend request (assuming they were mutual friends) , would that mean they would all be told off by a police officer??

OP, I wish there were clones of this officer that could be sent to every school in the UK. We can’t be vigilant enough when it comes to protecting young teenagers from the potential dangers of the internet.Ok, maybe the cop involved didn’t take the best approach, but it clearly raised the issue of accepting “friends” and got the kids discussing it..not a bad thing in my opinion.👍

Good grief, this is why I only put photos of my dog on instagram 😂😂

PP made a point about accepting friend requests- all the school kids I know, have something like 500+ friends on insta. It is a sign of popularity etc.

Which is why they needed to learn the dangers of accepting people they haven't checked out and don't actually know.

DD is sad bc she "only" has 200ish. If this fake friend request had shown up for her, and it was already "friended" by a couple of her closer friends, she very well might have friended "him", assuming he was their friend.

Which is why your DD needs to learn the dangers of accepting people she hasn't checked out.

It's one of the most popular ways for paedophiles to groom kids/teenagers and she should really know that.