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Webinar series
Around 1 in 4 Australians have experienced sexual abuse as a child (Australian Child Maltreatment Study, 2023) and with rapid technological advancements, perpetrators are always finding new ways to exploit financial services to harm children. This crisis demands action, and banks are uniquely positioned to lead the fight against child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA).
Join us for our new multi-part online event series, Empowering every bank: Detecting and disrupting child sexual exploitation and abuse, which will equip small and mid-sized banks with the knowledge and tools to prevent, detect, and report CSEA. These webinars aim to enhance your awareness and understanding of the crime type, offering financially relevant insights, case study examples, and actionable strategies to strengthen your organisation’s response.
This series focuses on the unique challenges faced by small and mid-sized banks, although professionals from other financial institutions are welcome to attend. Together, we can strengthen industry efforts, lead prevention and detection initiatives in the corporate sector, and protect society’s most vulnerable – our children.
Audience
This event series is designed for small and mid-sized banks. However, risk managers, compliance officers, anti-money laundering (AML) professionals, and key business decision makers from any financial institution are also welcome to register.
If you are unsure if these webinars are for you, feel free to contact us at event@icmec.org.au.
Event details
This series includes three sessions held virtually via Microsoft Teams.
Your Speakers
Bronwyn Mead Data and Intelligence Manager, Financial Crime and Cyber Resilience, Customer Owned Banking Association
Bronwyn has over 20 years of experience in the financial crime space. In addition to her operational experience with fraud, scams, and AML/CTF in the customer-owned banking sector, she is a Certified Fraud Examiner, and holds a Master of Fraud & Financial Crime. She is passionate about the value of the mutual sector, and keen to see uplift in the industry.
Her role at COBA is in data and intelligence, and she knows first-hand the challenges the sector faces in relation to financial crime, legacy systems, and capacity
Jessica Price Manager AML Operations, Indue
Jessica Price is an experienced AML professional with over eight years in financial crime, specialising in transaction monitoring, investigations, and regulatory reporting. As Manager of AML Operations at Indue Ltd, they oversee a transaction monitoring service for multiple financial institutions, helping clients strengthen their defences against evolving ML/TF threats.
With a strong operational background, they have built and trained transaction monitoring teams and understand the importance of robust processes in detecting and disrupting financial crime before it causes harm.
Registration
Please note, you will only need to register once to attend each session.
For more details on ICMEC Australia's events, visit our industry events page below.
In today’s digitally advanced society, children can access the online world with unparalleled ease. With a few clicks of a mouse or a swipe of a phone screen, they can virtually connect with friends from the comfort of their bedrooms – and people can connect with them too.
Sexual extortion, or sextortion, is a form of online blackmail in which someone tricks or coerces a person into sending sexual images of themselves, then threatens to share the photos if the person does not comply with their demands – usually for more images, payment, or sexual favours. This scam has rapidly become a critical child safety issue, with a recent Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) study reporting that one in ten Australian adolescents said that someone had sexually extorted them for money or more intimate material.
Our March Brown Bag, presented by Dr Heather Wolbers, Principal Research Analyst at AIC, will explore key findings from two new research reports examining adolescents’ experience of sextortion. The studies reveal the serious and varied short- and long-term effects of sextortion, highlighting the support needs of victim-survivors and the urgency of targeted approaches to reduce this crime.
Your speaker
Dr Heather Wolbers is a Principal Research Analyst in the Australian Institute of Criminology’s (AIC) Online Sexual Exploitation of Children Research Program. She has undertaken research within the fields of family and sexual violence, the online sexual exploitation of children, and serious and organised crime. Heather holds a Bachelor of Criminology and Criminal Justice (with Honours), a Bachelor of Forensic Science, and a PhD in Criminology from Griffith University
Event details
26 March 2025
Wednesday
12:30pm – 1:30pm
AEDT / Sydney
11:30am – 12:30pm AEST / Brisbane time
9:30am – 10:30am AWST / Perth time
Online event
via Microsoft teams
Registration
Registration for this event has now closed.
For more details on ICMEC Australia's events, visit our industry events page below.
Op Blackwrist, led by INTERPOL, was an international cross-agency investigation prompted by the discovery of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on a website which required a paid subscription.
The operation identified a network of offenders committing child sexual abuse, with some perpetrators travelling to Thailand to carry out the abuse. The heinous acts were then recorded and uploaded onto a website, where access to the material was commercialised and made available globally.
Tracking the consumption of the CSAM on the webpage posed a significant challenge to authorities, as access to the site and its content required a pay-per-view membership through an unregulated closed currency platform, TrueMoney.
Presented by ICMEC Australia’s new CEO Colm Gannon, who was an investigator on the case, our February Brown Bag will provide an overview of the operation. Colm’s presentation will focus on the challenges of closed currency platforms and how transaction laundering remains a key modus operandi for digital child trafficking in the commercialisation of child sexual abuse and exploitation.
Your speaker
Colm Gannon, CEO of ICMEC Australia, is a seasoned professional with a strong commitment to child protection and extensive expertise in digital safety, cybercrime investigations, and software development. With 20 years in law enforcement, he has been involved in national and international investigations and prosecutions relating to online harms, child sexual exploitation, violent extremism, and harmful online communication.
Previously a Product Manager at Rigr AI involved in the software development process, policy development, and impact assessments, Colm’s wealth of experience positions him at the intersection of technology and child protection.
Event details
26 February 2025
Wednesday
12:30pm – 1:30pm
AEDT / Sydney
11:30am – 12:30pm AEST / Brisbane time
9:30am – 10:30am AWST / Perth time
Online event
via Microsoft teams
Registration
Registrations for this event have now closed.
As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, it presents both challenges and opportunities in protecting children from exploitation. Our September Brown Bag will explore how artificial intelligence (AI) can be harnessed to enhance efforts in preventing and combatting online child sexual abuse by looking at a pioneering initiative led by the World Childhood Foundation.
Susanne Drakborg from the World Childhood Foundation will provide in-depth insights into their Stella Polaris project, which combines child rights with AI to create a coordinated, multi-layered approach to combatting child sexual abuse. By fostering collaboration between the technology sector, the judiciary, and child rights organisations, Stella Polaris aims to accelerate the development and implementation of AI solutions that can make meaningful impact in the fight against this heinous crime.
The session will discuss the importance of a global solution to a worldwide problem as we navigate child protection in the age of AI, what we can learn from the data-driven approaches of our international counterparts here in Australia, and what transparency, fairness, and innovation looks like when using AI to bolster child protection efforts. Susanne will share insights from successful AI solutions and offer practical suggestions for how you can be a part of the fight against online child sexual abuse, whether you work in child protection, law enforcement, technology, or policy-making.
Susanne Drakborg, Senior Programs Manager at World Childhood Foundation, works globally to prevent child sexual abuse. Susanne has led the World Childhood Foundation’s Child Safety Online program for the past 17 years, and is the team lead for Stella Polaris – a hub exploring and supporting how Artificial Intelligence can help combat child sexual abuse. A lawyer by education and a multi-linguist, Ms Drakborg previously worked for the United Nations on HIV and AIDS issues and on civil-military coordination on behalf of the European Commission.
Registrations for this event have now closed.
Child sexual exploitation (CSE) is often viewed and managed in isolation, despite its deep interconnection with other human impact crimes, like modern slavery. This siloed approach can limit our effectiveness in addressing the full range of these interrelated issues.
As organisations increasingly focus on minimising the risks of modern slavery through efforts prompted by the Modern Slavery Act, there is a significant and urgent opportunity to extend this same vigilance to protecting customers, particularly children, from harm. Regulatory changes and evolving stakeholder expectations are also intensifying, with customer outcomes critical to maintaining a social licence to operate.
Our August Brown Bag will shed light on how organisations can leverage existing modern slavery efforts for broader harm minimisation. Drawing on lessons learned across industries, this session will discuss embedding safety principles in the design, development, and deployment of products and services. Featuring Sarah Minahan and Gemma Livingston, Directors of KPMG’s Human Rights and Social Impact services in Australia and New Zealand, the discussion will explore specialist insights, real-world case studies, and practical actions to help keep some of your most vulnerable customers - children - safe.
Sarah Minahan, Director, Human Rights and Social Impact at KPMG, works with clients to embed human rights and modern slavery due diligence into their operations and supply chains. As KPMG’s Social ESG Lead in Financial Services, she has extensive experience in supporting managers in financial service institutions, as well as broader sectors such as energy, telecommunications, retail, and more. Sarah specialises in risk control design and implementation, stakeholder engagement, risk and social impact strategy, sustainability reporting, and impact measurement.
Gemma Livingston leads KPMG’s Human Rights and Social Impact offerings in New Zealand. Specialising in human rights due diligence, Gemma works with clients to identify and address human rights and modern slavery risks across their business operations and supply chains. With a background in commercial and criminal litigation and experience in the public, private, and community sectors in New Zealand and Australia, Gemma brings a wealth of knowledge to working with financial institutions to incorporate safety principles in areas like child exploitation, modern slavery, financial abuse, and more.
This session will not be recorded, so please join us live to ensure you don’t miss out on this valuable webinar.
Registrations for this event have closed.
Please contact us at event@icmec.org.au for further enquiries.
July’s Monthly Brown Bag session will be presented by Warren Bulmer, Head of Data Products at ICMEC Australia. Warren will draw on his law enforcement experience to provide tools that can enhance the work organisations do in detecting, investigating, and reporting child sexual exploitation, particularly in online environments.
People today cannot help but leave a digital trail wherever they navigate on the Internet or use any technology with their devices. Where that data is stored, how it is accessed or found, and what it can reveal manifests into hundreds of variables. Equally, those variables determine the tools and methodologies needed to search for and analyse Internet-based information, as well as facilitate the assessment of the levels of privacy expected or, in many cases, misunderstood by the person who owns the information.
Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) has become a mainstream buzzword, but in reality, most researchers, journalists and investigators are just collecting information, which is called OSINF. It becomes intelligence when processes or structures are applied to the collection of information, such as ethics, authentication or verification, analysis, reporting, and dissemination. This session will focus on tips, tricks, and tools to find information about online identities or artefacts worthy of actioning into intelligence, depending on what purpose it serves.
Warren Bulmer, Head of Data Products at ICMEC Australia, collaborates with industry to create innovative technological solutions to make the world a safer place for children. A retired Detective Constable with 30 years at the Toronto Police Service specialising in criminal investigations, Warren has extensive experience in fighting against child sexual exploitation and sharing this knowledge with other professionals. Warren has been an international instructor in computer and internet-facilitated crime, having lectured over 7,000 judges, prosecutors, and police from 39 different countries to date. He has also taught at the United Nations in Thailand; the Canadian Police College; the Ontario Police College; and at Humber College, where he instructed students in conducting online investigations and open-source intelligence techniques (OSINT). Warren also worked for the Australian Federal Police as a Product Manager for three years, where he helped build technical capabilities for the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE).
This session will not be recorded, so please join us live to ensure you don’t miss out on this valuable webinar.
Registrations for this event have closed.
Please contact us at event@icmec.org.au for further enquiries.
We are proud to present our second symposium event in Sydney, the ICMEC Australia Symposium 2024: Vigilant Disruption of Child Sexual Exploitation.
This valuable in-person event is dedicated to combatting online-facilitated child sexual exploitation (CSE), uniting senior leaders from various sectors within the CSE response landscape.
At the forefront of discussions will be the urgent need for interdisciplinary collaboration in confronting this abhorrent crime. From organisations inadvertently entangled in CSE to those actively fighting it on the front lines, a collective response is imperative in tackling this ever-evolving threat.
The ICMEC Australia Symposium 2024 will invite leaders from sectors such as financial services, cryptocurrency, travel, telecommunications, and ISPs to come together with law enforcement and other key stakeholders from the public sector to explore how collaboration can strengthen public-private partnerships in fighting and preventing CSE.
The event will dive into practical knowledge attendees can leverage around identifying, detecting, reporting, and preventing CSE to strengthen their organisation’s fulfilment of regulatory and social obligations. Attendees will also walk away with a better understanding of how to navigate the steps forward; equipped with tools, resources, and connections to bolster the whole-of-system approach that is so desperately needed to fight this silent epidemic.
The Symposium is an invite-only event.
At ICMEC Australia, we highly value community engagement and embrace diverse perspectives. The event is designed for senior leaders in:
This event is proudly supported by the following organisations.
Major Supporter
Platinum Sponsor
If you are interested in becoming a supporter of this event, please contact us at event@icmec.org.au.
Date: Wednesday, 30 October, 2024
Time: 9:00am - 3:30pm Symposium, followed by networking from 3:30pm - 5:00pm
More speakers will be announced soon.
Julie Inman Grant
Australian eSafety Commissioner
Office of the eSafety Commissioner
Jodie Arthur
General Manager of Financial Crime
Westpac and Group MLRO
Paul Jevtovic APM OAM
Chief Financial Crime Risk & Group MLRO
National Australia Bank
Dr James Cockayne
NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner
NSW Department of Communities and Justice
John Fogarty
Executive General Manager, Financial Crime Compliance
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (Group MLRO)
Sue Bradford
Partner - Audit, Assurance & Risk Consulting, Forensic
KPMG Australia
Chris Owen
Partner, ESG Group Chair, National Pro Bono Team Leader
Norton Rose Fulbright
Toby Evans
Head of Economic Crime
Australian Payments Network
Stefanie von Westphalen
Head of Financial Crime Compliance/MLRO
ING Bank Australia
Jeremy Moller
Risk Advisory Lawyer
Norton Rose Fulbright
Colm Gannon
Non-Executive Chair
ICMEC Australia
Warren Bulmer
Head of Data Products
ICMEC Australia
Lynda McMillan
Head of Payments Representation
Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Timothy Goodrick
Director, Forensic
KPMG Australia
Paul Griffiths
Child Victim Identification Manager
Queensland Police Service
Scott Ralph
Team Leader, Intelligence Fusion Cell
Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE)
Jon Rouse APM
Non-Executive Board Member
ICMEC Australia
Dr Michael Salter
Director
Childlight UNSW
Christiane Gillespie-Jones
Deputy CEO
Communications Alliance
Scott Atkins
Australian Chair, Global Head of Restructuring, Head of Risk Advisory
Norton Rose Fulbright Australia
Cheryl Seeto
Head of Policy, Australia
Meta
Marcus Elwing
AML Manager
Swyftx
Craig Robertson
Financial Crime and Compliance Expert (Asia Pacific)
SymphonyAI
Registrations for this event have now closed.
Please contact us at event@icmec.org.au for further enquiries.
Be a catalyst for change by joining us at the inaugural SaferAI for Children Summit. Engage in an important conversation about the manipulation of AI to harm children and explore ways to harness this technology for good.
The International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children Australia’s inaugural SaferAI for Children Summit is a one-day event dedicated to cross-industry innovation to navigate child protection in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
In today's rapidly evolving technological landscape, staying informed is crucial for crafting effective child protection responses. Unfortunately, the misuse of Generative AI by offenders to harm children is a growing concern. Offenders are increasingly manipulating GenAI tools to extend and amplify their abuse, resulting in illegal and harmful material. This issue demands urgent attention and action.
This discussion must extend beyond the harms of AI. This technology also holds significant potential to enhance our ability to protect children. ICMEC Australia’s SaferAI for Children Summit will explore the opportunities AI presents for child protection and emphasise the urgency for action in this space.
Child sexual abuse is undeniably one of society's most harmful crimes. It is our collective responsibility to do everything within our power to protect children from harm and prevent abuse. As the first summit of its kind in Australia, this event will be solutions-focused, highlighting the critical role AI plays in keeping our children safe.
This event is proudly supported by
If you are interested in becoming a supporter of this event, please contact Dannielle Kelly, Head of Capacity and Prevention, at dkelly@icmec.org.au
Date: Tuesday 29 October 2024
Time: 8.45am - 4:00pm, followed by networking from 4:00pm - 5:00pm
This event is free of charge, noting the significance of this topic and ICMEC Australia's commitment to raising awareness of this critical issue.
This event will not be livestreamed. We ask that you only register if you are able to attend in-person in Sydney.
This unique event is tailored to leaders from various sectors, including:
Please note that due to limited spaces, registration is subject to approval.
His Excellency, Mr Gabriele Visentin
EU Ambassador to Australia
Delegation of the European Union to Australia
Ian McCartney APM
Acting Commissioner
Australian Federal Police
Adèle Desirs
Victim Identification Analyst
Argos, Queensland Police
Paul Griffiths
Child Victim Identification Manager
Queensland Police Service
Dr Catriona Wallace
Founder
Responsible Metaverse Alliance
Toby Dagg
General Manager, Regulatory Operations
eSafety Commissioner
Ashley Katz
Director, Child Protection International Partnerships
Attorney-General's Department
Jeannie Paterson
Co-Director, Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Ethics
University of Melbourne
Grace Tame
Advocate and Founder
Grace Tame Foundation
Colm Gannon
Non-Executive Chair
ICMEC Australia
Jon Rouse APM
Non-Executive Board Member
ICMEC Australia
Mark Dickson
Executive Manager, Financial Crime
Westpac
Ryan Black
Director of Government Affairs, ANZ
Microsoft
Simon Fogarty APM
Sergeant, Team Leader - Intelligence Team/Victim Identification Team
Victoria Police
Campbell Wilson
Co-Director, AiLECS Lab
Monash University
Sean Litton
President and CEO
Technology Coalition
Mia Garlick
Senior Regional Director, Policy
Meta
Dr Rebecca Portnoff
Vice President, Data Science
Thorn
Dr Joel Scanlan
Senior Lecturer
University of Tasmania
Sue Bradford
Partner - Audit, Assurance & Risk Consulting, Forensic
KPMG Australia
Danielle Kelly
Head of Capacity and Prevention
ICMEC Australia
Timothy Goodrick
Director, Forensic
KPMG Australia
Rosie Campo
Acting CEO
ICMEC Australia
Registrations for this event have now closed.
Please contact us at event@icmec.org.au for further enquiries.
ICMEC Australia serves as a crucial advocate and resource in the fight against online child sexual exploitation (CSE). We are boldly confronting this issue when most would rather avoid it. Alongside our coalition of partners, we strive to proactively halt and prevent its occurrence.
At ICMEC Australia, we're turning the use of online technology to exploit children on its head. We support frontline workers in combatting child sexual abuse by leveraging technology and data-driven strategies to detect, report, prosecute, and prevent child exploitation.
Our mission is clear: to support and strengthen the professionals who detect, report, prosecute and prevent online CSE. As an independent not-for-profit organisation, we collaborate with various stakeholders, such as financial services and corporate entities, law enforcement, policymakers, academics, and NGOs, to develop strategies to protect children from harm.
Discussions around child sexual exploitation (CSE) frequently revolve around identifying and responding to instances of abuse. However, what can we do to prevent perpetration?
In 2023, the University of NSW (UNSW), in partnership with Jesuit Social Services, released the first national representative study, Identifying and understanding child sexual offending behaviour and attitudes among Australian men. The study found around one in six (15.1%) Australian men reported sexual feelings towards children. Of these, 29.6% of them wanted help for these feelings, representing a shocking 4.5% of Australian men.
This month’s Brown Bag will focus on the importance of secondary prevention efforts in the fight to end child sexual abuse. Presented by Georgia Naldrett and Dee Nicholas from Stop It Now! Australia (an initiative of Jesuit Social Services), the session will provide a brief history of perpetration prevention, findings from their 2023 perpetration prevalence study with UNSW, and how they relate to Stop It Now!’s work. Georgia and Dee will also explore emerging trends from the perpetrator prevalence study and working with perpetrators via the Stop It Now! Australia helpline, including what we know about their online behaviour (e.g. use of cryptocurrency, pornography use etc.).
Registrations close on Monday, 27th May at 12pm (AEST).
Stop it Now! is a program that offers an anonymous helpline, chat and web resources for people concerned about their own sexual thoughts and behaviours towards children, or for people concerned about the thoughts or behaviours of others. ICMEC Australia recently partnered with Jesuit Social Services to support the expansion and development of this prevention program in Australia.
Georgia Naldrett is the Stop It Now! Australia Manager within The Men’s Project at Jesuit Social Services. Within this role she applies her psychological and practice knowledge of sexual offending and child protection to aid in the prevention of child sexual abuse, including leading the Stop It Now! helpline. Georgia is a psychology graduate with a BSc (hons) in Psychology and a MSc in Forensic Psychology from the UK. She has been employed in a variety of psychology roles where she developed her learning and application of rehabilitation and prevention, including previously working at The Lucy Faithfull Foundation in the UK.
Dee Nicholas is the Senior Practitioner at Stop It Now! Australia, where she uses her academic and practice experience and knowledge of offender rehabilitation and prevention to provide support, advice and psychoeducation to prevent child sexual abuse. She holds a BSc in Psychology and a MSc in Forensic Psychology from Newcastle University, UK. Dee has previously worked at Stop It Now! UK where she gained extensive knowledge of child protection and sexual offending, and has worked in a variety of forensic and clinical settings.
Within financial institutions, the financial crime team usually plays a leading role in fighting child sexual exploitation. However, due to this crime type's complexity and ever-evolving nature, a more holistic approach to child safeguarding and protection across financial organisations is needed. This approach creates greater meaningful change, not just within the company, but for the benefit of its customers and our broader society.
This month’s Brown Bag will showcase how Westpac Group has adopted a human rights lens above and beyond their financial crime work to proactively address child exploitation. Westpac’s efforts are led by a core mission to prevent exploitation from occurring in the first place. Their work focuses on strengthening human rights due diligence using a Safety by Design approach and raising awareness in collaboration with other partners and businesses.
Presented by Dr Kavitha Suthanthiraraj and Natasha Menezes from Westpac Group’s Human Rights and Social Programs team, the session will cover how Westpac used a human rights approach in designing the Safer Children, Safer Communities program, publishing their first Child Safeguarding Position Statement in 2021 (a first for an Australian bank), and how they continue to embed their child safeguarding commitments as part of their broader human rights program.
Please join us for this valuable session to hear Westpac Group share innovative strategies and tangible solutions to assist your organisation in its fight against CSE.
About Westpac’s Safer Children, Safer Communities program
The Safer Children, Safer Communities program involves a series of actions and investments designed to make a meaningful impact on child safety and protection. The program is delivered in Australia and across the Asia Pacific.
For more information on Westpac’s Safer Children, Safer Communities program, please visit their website.
Dr Kavitha Suthanthiraraj, Head of ESG, Human Rights and Social Programs at Westpac, has over 20 years of experience in strategy, policy and sustainability roles across corporates, international non-profits, and academic institutions. Joining Westpac in June 2020, Kavitha established and led the Safer Children, Safer Communities work program, and currently heads up a portfolio of human rights and social programs, including modern slavery reporting. With a Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science, Kavitha has published articles and reports across a range of human rights issues and has worked on several policy and advocacy initiatives during her career.
Natasha Menezes, Executive Manager of Social Programs at Westpac, has over 10 years’ experience in sustainability, human rights, and policy areas across consulting, corporates, and the not-for-profit sector. In 2021, Natasha led the development of Westpac’s Child Safeguarding Position Statement and is currently focused on driving a cross-industry child safeguarding business coalition to share Westpac’s learnings with other Australian businesses. Her career spans a range of human-rights-focused work, climate change, sustainability strategy, modern slavery, and sustainability reporting.
This session will not be recorded, so please join us live to ensure you don’t miss out on this valuable webinar.
ICMEC Australia acknowledges Traditional Owners throughout Australia and their continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and Elders past and present.
