Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) – In the debate about the rights of investigators in cases of child abuse, Baden-Württemberg’s Minister of Justice Marian Gentges spoke out in favor of longer storage periods. “If investigators come across the exchange of child pornographic material on the Internet, they must be able to find out which IP address it came from and they must be able to determine the owner of this IP address,” said the CDU politician on Tuesday evening on the radio show “Tagessprach ” of the station SWR2. “But that’s pointless if the addresses aren’t saved. They’re only there for two to seven days and that’s not enough,” said Gentges.
Investigators have been complaining for a long time that although they can determine the IP addresses of many pedo-sexual perpetrators, identification often fails because the associated user data has already been deleted. After brutal abuse of children became known in North Rhine-Westphalia on Monday, a debate about the relationship between data protection and child protection was rekindled.
The main suspect is a 44-year-old from Wermelskirchen, who is said to have offered his services as a babysitter on the Internet and thus approached his victims. He is said to have exchanged child pornographic images and videos of “unimaginable brutality” with dozens of other men, investigators said. So far, 73 suspects and 33 victims have been identified. Child pornography is depiction of severe child sexual abuse.
