• The groups of citizens who fight against cyberpédocriminality are multiplying today in the four corners of France.

  • Several associations and parliamentarians are calling for a legal framework so that these activists can work jointly with the authorities.

  • "There is of course no question of taking the place of the police and the judiciary: it is a question of being a help, a relay, an additional force in the fight against pedocriminality on the Internet, a real scourge for our children. », Explains Maud Petit, Modem Member of Parliament for Val-de-Marne, who is campaigning for the establishment of an official collaboration.

Team Eunomie in Normandy, Team Artemis in Rhône-Alpes, Team Scorpio in Nord Pas-de-Calais… The groups of citizens who fight against cyberpédocriminality are multiplying today in the four corners of France. Directly inspired by Team Moore, created in 2019 on Reunion Island, these Internet users - activists from civil society - track down sexual predators "who work with impunity on the Web". By creating fake profiles on social networks, they pass themselves off as teenagers in order to attract and trap pedophiles, whom they then report to justice.

"Our collaboration with the authorities enabled the arrest of six suspected pedophiles, only in the month of May 2021. And in total, nearly fifty arrests and fifteen convictions to our credit on French territory, in just two years old.

Not to mention our entire movement, which has enabled around a hundred arrests around the world, ”explains

Steven Moore *

to

20 Minutes

, a father from Reunion Island at the origin of this citizen movement, which today claims several thousands of active activists.

Towards official collaboration with the police?

Very concrete results, hailed by several child protection associations. “Despite the reluctance of the authorities, we support what they are doing, because they have enabled the arrest of several sexual predators. Given the stakes - and the lack of resources in France - legislation must evolve quickly on this issue. Investigators must be able to work together with these activists, ”

 Homayra Sellier, president of the Innocence in danger association

, explained to

20 Minutes

in 2019

. Several other associations, as well as parliamentarians, are also calling today for a legal framework so that these activists can work jointly with the police and the judiciary.

Maud Petit, Modem MP for Val-de-Marne, proposed to the Assembly at the end of June the establishment of an official collaboration between Team Moore and the public authorities. “It is necessary and high time to think about a legal framework - which would define both the possibilities and the limits of such a collaboration - to avoid any drift on such a sensitive subject. There is of course no question of taking the place of the police and the courts: it is a question of being a help, a relay, an additional force in the fight against child crime on the Internet, a real scourge for our children ” , explains to

20 Minutes

the parliamentarian, co-chair of the study group at the National Assembly on children's rights and youth protection.

“Such collaboration is also already effective in the field, since last April, in Haute-Saône, the collective sent the Besançon judicial police a file containing screenshots of discussions of a sexual nature between a male and the one he thought was a 12-year-old.

A ten-month prison sentence was pronounced against him, accompanied by socio-judicial monitoring with obligation of care for five years, ”adds the deputy, convinced of the usefulness of the action taken by these activists. .

“Everyone must stay in their place: I am not asking the police or the magistrates to be bakers!

"

Despite the increase in arrests and convictions, these citizens' initiatives worry the authorities. “The risks of abuses are very important (…) Allowing citizens to enter an investigation would involve taking risks. Let them denounce the facts, okay, but letting them intervene in the process of criminal proceedings seems very worrying to me. Everyone must stay in their place: I am not asking the police or the magistrates to be bakers! ", Considers the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti, fiercely opposed to any official collaboration with" these vigilantes of the Web ".

Contacted by

20 Minutes

, the DCPJ-Central Group of Underage Victims, in charge of the fight against child crime on the Internet, refused to comment on the subject.

However, in 2019, she pointed out the dangers that such practices could cause.

“It's forbidden for the common people.

Only certain highly specialized police officers have access to this investigative technique [pseudonymized investigation (ESP)].

The activist can put himself in danger when he goes to such meetings ”, and his work can be counterproductive when the collected evidence is not of sufficient quality to launch an investigation, explained the official. of the Central Group of Minors Victims.

"France is far behind on these questions"

The French authorities therefore do not seem ready, for the moment, to envisage such a collaboration. “To my dismay, France is still very cautious, it has difficulty evolving in certain modes of operation… In any case, it is a subject that we will not abandon, and that I will reintroduce during the next debates to the Assembly, ”explains MP Maud Petit, stressing that“ citizen engagement in the field is not a new phenomenon: there are already several citizen groups, such as the “Voisins vigilants” system, which allows alert the police and speed up their intervention in the event of a burglary. Participatory public policies are also an invitation from institutions to direct action by citizens, ”adds the parliamentarian.

Abroad, and particularly in Great Britain, these citizens' initiatives have been in existence for about ten years.

But there, the work of "pedophile hunters" is officially recognized and supervised by the authorities.

There are a hundred groups of "vigilantes" across the Channel who track pedophiles on the Web.

And videos of lynching and interrogation are regularly posted on social networks: suspected pedophiles, filmed with their faces uncovered and under their true identity, are thus thrown into the pasture of Internet users.

Controversial practices that the French authorities do not wish to encourage.

* "Steven Moore" wishes to remain anonymous.

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  • Social networks

  • Justice

  • Investigation

  • Pedocriminality

  • Teenager

  • By the Web

  • Internet

  • Child pornography