Alberta’s Law Enforcement Response Team is warning parents after dozens of complaints about children receiving sexual messages while texting.
“Initial indication is it’s an adult, a female, usually trying to lure a child into either sexualized chatting or exchange pictures, “says staff sergeant John Guidon.
The messages are actually coming from a computer program called a clever bot or a chat bot.
Usually an unsolicited message is sent out via text message such as a smiley face, or hi.
The problems when the users try to respond to the texts.
“Regardless of what you type back into that application you’re going to get the same old thing,” says Guigon. “It’s going to be some unsolicited nude photographs of a female, an adult male and then eventually it’s going to direct you to an adult website.
So far the problem is only affecting people that use the kik messenger platform, a company based in Waterloo, Ontario.
The company is aware of the problem and says it’s working on new tools to block it.
Parents and children that use kik messenger are encouraged to have settings set as high as possible and not to respond to messages with an unknown sender.
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