Paedophiles attempting to "groom" children in internet chatrooms can now be detected by a computer program, it reported.
The ChatNannies software supposedly joins in chatroom conversation, pretending to be human. According to the ChatNannies developer Jim Wightman, it analyses the behaviour of the person it is chatting with and if it spots signs of paedophile activity, it sends out an alert to its creators. He even claimed to have helped some police investigations.
The BBC was among those to uncritically report these claims. But there are obvious problems with them, as other observers were quick to point out. If it did what it claimed, it would be ten years ahead of any other software available. And even if it did work, how would the chatrooms be chosen for monitoring and police resources cope with following up all the "suspicious" conversations?
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