Each year on the second Sunday in June, the FBI Philadelphia recognizes National Children’s Day and reaffirms our mission to combat crimes against children. As summer quickly approaches, we want to remind parents, caregivers, and students of important safety information and our FBI resources.

FBI Philadelphia has a dedicated team of special agents, analysts, task force officers, and victim specialists working to combat crimes against children every day throughout our territory.

One crime the FBI has seen a significant increase in is financially motivated sextortion schemes targeting children via the Internet. From October 2021 to March 2023, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations received over 13,000 reports of online financial sextortion of minors. The sextortion involved at least 12,600 victims—primarily boys—and led to at least 20 suicides.

It is important to have ongoing conversations about appropriate online behavior. Other advice to consider includes:

• Education about the websites, software, games, and apps that your children use.
• Check their social media and gaming profiles and posts. Have conversations about what is appropriate to say or share.
• Explain to your kids that once images or comments are posted online they can be shared with anyone and never truly disappear.
• Make sure your kids use privacy settings to restrict access to their online profiles.
• Tell your children to be extremely wary when communicating with anyone online who they do not know in real life.
• Encourage kids to choose appropriate screen names and to create strong passwords.
• Make it a rule with your kids that they can't arrange to meet up with someone they met online without your knowledge and supervision.
• Stress to your children that making any kind of threat online—even if they think it’s a joke—is a crime.
• Report any inappropriate contact between an adult and your child to law enforcement immediately. Notify the site they were using, too.

Children that feel threatened need to ask a trusted adult for help. Most children are afraid to tell their parents, teachers, or other trusted adults about their online activities, especially if the activities are inappropriate.

As part of the FBI’s commitment to childhood safety, the FBI maintains interagency partnerships with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), to review information that is provided to NCMEC’s Cyber Tipline.

FBI Philadelphia can be reached at (215) 418-4000.

Additional Resources:

• For more information on FBI’s Violent Crimes Against Children program, please visit https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/violent-crime/cac
• For more information on sextortion, visit: https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/scams-and-safety/common-scams-and-crimes/sextortion
• For information on FBI Victim Services, visit: https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/victim-services