Amanda Todd's mother highlights dangers of sextortion amid spike in Lethbridge cases

Carol Todd speaks to CTV News in an interview on Sept. 15, 2022.

The mother of Amanda Todd is weighing in on the devastating impacts of sexual extortion, also know as sextortion, amid a rise in cases reported in Lethbridge.

On Wednesday, Lethbridge police said they've seen the number of sextortion reports they field more than double in 2022.

Local reports of sextortion — a largely online act which sees a culprit threaten to release sexual images or videos of a victim if they don’t pay up or provide more content — jumped from 20 between January and September 2021, to 43 in the same period this year.

"What we're seeing with kids is a lot more time on Instagram and Snapchat and, through that, there's increased ability for them to be exploited," said Cst. Chris Andrade.

"So what we're seeing over the past year is a huge increase in receiving these reports."

Lethbridge police say 20 per cent of this year's sextortion victims were under 18 years of age.

The youngest was under 13, police say.

"They don't have the knowledge and education that adults do," added Andrade.

"They don't see the risks that we might associate with unknown accounts adding them, so they are particularly just more vulnerable."

The issue of sextortion is one that Carol Todd is all too familiar with. 

In 2012, her 15-year-old daughter Amanda from Port Coquitlam, B.C., died by suicide after facing sextortion, cyber bullying and having sensitive photos of her released online.

"We need to understand how technology works and how to better protect our children," Todd said.

"We may never have to talk or use it, and that's okay, but we need to have it in our toolkit."

Aydin Coban, a Dutch national, was found guilty of five charges related to the harassment and extortion of Amanda on Aug. 6, 2022.

Todd says she doesn't want to see anyone else go through what Amanda and the rest of her family had to.

"There are so many things in memory and in honour of her story out there for us to remember, to learn from," she told CTV News.

Coban has a sentencing hearing scheduled for Sept. 20.

'PROMOTE DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP': LETHBRIDGE SCHOOL DIVISION 

A stock photo showing apps on a cellphone. (Pexels/Pixabay)Lethbridge School Division released a statement on Thursday saying it is commited to supporting the community in "promoting digital citizenship."

"Teaching students how to responsibly and safely use technology is a shared responsibility, and to that end, the division will continue to provide educational and skill-building opportunities to support students and families," read the statement.

"The division, along with our schools, have hosted a number of digital citizenship evenings over the last number of years, and we continue to examine further opportunities. Lethbridge Police Service warnings regarding significant increases in reports of sextortion are just another reminder of the importance of our collective responsibilities to engage young people in using technology safely."

Counsellors at Lethbridge’s Holy Spirit Catholic School Division have taken a similar stance.

"Conversations like this need to take place," said Anita Lethbridge-Gross, Holy Spirit’s Coordinator of Counselling and Wellness.

"As challenging and as difficult as it might be, we know that this is too big for any child, any youth to navigate on their own."

According to LPS, if a youth or anyone else you know is being sexually extorted, Cybertip.ca advises them to:

• Immediately stop all communication. Deactivate (but don’t delete) any of the accounts you are using to communicate with the individual.
• Do not comply with the threat. Never pay money and never send additional nudes. The situation will not get better by doing either of these things. If the youth has paid money, check to see if it has been collected and, if not, quickly cancel the payment.
• Dealing with sextortion is too big for the youth to manage on their own.
• Keep the correspondence. Keep information such as the person’s username(s), social media account information, a copy of the communications, along with any images and/or videos that were sent.

For more information about sextortion and what resources are available, you can visit the Cybertip website.