Police announced today that a new unit was being established to monitor the activities of Malaysians who watch pornography online.
Before you start digging around for those VHS tapes, the Malaysian Internet Crime Against Children Investigation Unit (Micac), has said that they will be especially watching for those who download and upload child pornography.
In a rather nebulous explanation of who the unit will be targeting, the New Straits Times reported that Micac will be building a data library of the portals certain IP addresses visit, in real time, and will be detailing how long individuals spend on illicit sites. They did not say that surveillance would only be dedicated to those viewing child pornography, but rather that it would be a focus.
According to Ong Chin Lan, the Sexual, Women and Child Investigation division principal assistant director Assistant Commissioner: “We will pick up those who visit these sites regularly. We use a software that was specially developed to allow us to identify, locate and track visits to porn sites, especially those involving child porn.”
This information will then be disseminated to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, user details will be given, and then suspects will be taken in for questioning. Ong did not rule out that they may even be arrested in their own homes.
The software will also identify users who seek pornography via their mobile phones.
We applaud the move to protect more children from falling victim to depraved individuals seeking twisted enjoyment from their sexual abuse; we also hope that such zeal will also be applied to protect children as young as 11 years old being married to men who are in their 40s.
While many over-18 pornography websites are banned in Malaysia via government blocks, determined internet users get around the barrier via VPNs or DNS alterations. Malaysians are among the most avid users of the popular site Pornhub, despite it being officially blocked.
