DHAKA: The US Department of Homeland Security enlisted smartphone users in its fight against child pornography on Thursday with an iPhone app intended to make it easy to report suspected child predators.

The Operation Predator app lets informants submit information via email or a telephone tipline, and also includes a run-down of the nation`s most-wanted alleged child sex offenders.

It is free to download via iTunes - albeit with a warning that it is not for persons under the age of 17, presumably the group most vulnerable to child sex crimes.

"When children are being sexually abused and exploited, it`s a race against the clock to rescue the child and bring the predator to justice," said John Sandweg, acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Homeland Security unit behind the app.

Source: ST

BDST: 0135 HRS, SEP 13, 2013
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