Canadian Predators Roam MySpace

Is MySpace safe? It may be hard to answer yes to this question since, as of July 25, 2007, 29,000 registered offenders had created profiles on the world's most popular social networking community. (Source: businessweek.com)

Before you cancel your Internet service and sell the kids' computer, find comfort in the fact that things will be changing for the better. MySpace has teamed up with Sentinel Tech to create technology to banish registered offenders from its site. However, the new measures do not apply to Canada.

But, don't be too eager to point fingers at MySpace. Ottawa's information laws are preventing the team from removing Canada's criminals.

The problem relates to the amount of public access in terms of the national offender registry. Canadian police use these records to gain information about investigating crimes of an explicit nature. Regular citizens do not have the right to see this data. The CEO of Sentinel Tech, John Cardillo, shows how this rule creates difficulty for his company by saying, "We can't even work with any private companies or law-enforcement agencies because we simply can't get hold of the data." As a result, predators have more freedom when using Canadian social networking sites to lure young victims. (Source: canada.com)

As of right now, the United States is the only country that is providing information to Sentinel Tech to filter a database of predators into a detection system. With only one country on board, isolating predators from the Internet is much more than a technical challenge, it is now a political challenge as well.

Due to Ottawa's strict information laws, registered Canadian predators can visit MySpace, virtually undetected. Unlike those in the United States, Canadian offenders can't be stopped because they can't be identified.

According to MySpace's chief security officer, Hemanshu Nigam is pleased to have deleted these threats and "hope that other social networking sites follow our lead." (Source: canada.com)