 Hello Pasco County, I'm Public Information Officer Melanie Snow and today I am joined by two of our cyber crimes detectives, this is Detective Anthony Basone and Detective Aaron Smith. Now cyber crimes is something we're certainly seeing a lot more of now that the internet has blown up the way it has, there are more apps than ever, social media is bigger than it's ever been and these crimes are popping up all over the place. Every day we're seeing something new and new ways that suspects are using apps and the internet to get to our children, to get to our money, but first let's talk a little bit about how parents can keep their children safe, just generally speaking when they have that phone, they have access to an iPad or some type of device where they can access these apps. Melanie the internet is a scary place, there's no doubt about it and especially for parents with younger kids are just starting to use these devices for sure. The best thing is physical monitoring, it's the same thing as if you were to bring your kid to interact with strangers at the mall or at a playground, you know you're not just going to let them out of your sight where you can't see what's going on, same thing applies to mobile devices, make sure that you can keep an eye on their side of the conversation to see what's being said, what they're doing and they can't be let off somewhere where you don't know what's happening. So one of the things I know a lot of children when they play these games or apps that they're motivated by the free things they can get, the V-Bucks or an upgrade in the game they're playing, tell me how that particular type of thing might be used by a pedophile or a criminal out there to try to entice a child. Someone out there may offer these things or very desired by the child where they can be gifted, pedophile will gift them to a child that they've met and use that to build trust. In the 80s and 90s one of the things that we were taught as children is to stay away from someone when they're offering you candy or toys and offering those things in exchange for you getting in their car and now we have this new type of criminal who's using what you just described to lure children online with things that would cost them money and instead they're giving those things to them for free. That's correct. And then as that trust builds they'll make contact over multiple days and they can get personal information, address, school and then even get the child to send photographs of themselves or take videos of themselves. I know there's several apps that can create a concern for parents because of the features that are within those apps. I know LiveMe and Musically are two apps that are very popular right now, they're growing in popularity. Musically has been out there for quite a while. Tell me how those two are, two of your biggest concerns as a detective working these cases. LiveMe is a live streaming app a lot very similar to some of the other apps and the problem with it is it's not recording pictures, text conversations that your parents can go in and check on later to see what was being said. It's a live stream, other people out on the internet can be watching it but as soon as that chat's closed out you can't see what is going on. Things can happen very quickly, bullying can break out there, children can be lured into a private chat room and you know either asked or rewarded to do different things, showing nudity, things like that. So that's the danger of those types of apps. Now working cases especially involving child predators every day, why is it important that as parents especially we do not underestimate the pedophile? They are as you know on the cutting edge of these apps as your child and usually parents are playing catch up. By the time we catch up with something use a parent may start developing some concern for an app, the kids may already been moving on to a next one and the criminals are following. How do we keep up as parents? How do we keep up? What we can do is even if you're just someone who doesn't like technology just kind of buckle down and make yourself go through some of these apps. When your kid wants a new app, install it on your phone first, make yourself an account and start using it. See what the functions are, see what it will do, what it won't do, see what you can block in the settings. If you have questions try to find a friend that's maybe a little more tech savvy to help walk you through stuff. And how can we better stay not necessarily in control but at least aware of what our kids are doing? I would recommend that you are engaged as a parent with who your kids are communicating with. Question them as to who is this person, how do you know them and really stay involved with the people on their friends list. There are a lot of different tools out there. As far as mobile devices go, phones, parents want their kids to have phones so that they can contact them in an emergency, they have a way to get a hold of their kids. So it's kind of a double edged sword, you're a little bit worried about what they're doing but you want that security. So my best suggestion is as a family, I don't necessarily prescribe one type of product over the other be it Android or Apple but try to stick to the same platform as a family just because it's easier to control everything. There's a parent with Apple products with iOS, they have parental controls where you can put pass codes in, control what apps can be downloaded and you have to approve them and on the Android side of the house we have Google family link. It's a very good application that does many of the same things, it allows you to set bed times, it allows you to set a limit on hours that they can spend on their phone and also lets you control the downloads and what different apps they can and can't have. Alright, thank you both for talking to us today. Be sure to check out any links we'll be sure to include with this video to help parents access this information and if you have any questions for our detectives feel free to send them through our social media and we'll make sure we get those answers to you.