Politics
Politics

App aimed at catching child predators now available for Android phones

By
Oct 8, 2014

A free app aimed at helping federal immigration authorities apprehend child predators is now available for Android smartphones and in Spanish for both Android and Apple products.

Called “Operation Predator,” the app allows users to receive alerts about wanted predators, send authorities tips and get news about arrests and prosecutions.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement first made the app available for Apple products in September of last year. Within 36 hours of its debut, according to ICE, the app helped authorities apprehend a suspect.

“This app is one piece of our commitment to ensuring child predators have absolutely nowhere to hide,” Thomas Winkowski, ICE’s acting director, said in a prepared statement.

The iOS version of the app can be downloaded from Apple’s App Store and iTunes, while the Android version is available on the Google Play store.

Since 2003, ICE has arrested more than 10,000 people for crimes against children, including producing and distributing online child pornography and traveling overseas for sex with minors.

About the Author

Jeremy Redmon is an award-winning journalist, essayist and educator with more than three decades of experience reporting for newspapers. He has written for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution since 2005.

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