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Child pornography on the rise

The Federal Police Office (Fedpol) has registered a significant increase in the number of suspected violations of the law on hardcore pornography on the internet.

Fedpol’s cybercrime unit said there were 1,743 reports of abuse of the law on hardcore pornography in 2010.

The authorities define hardcore pornography as “sexual acts with children, animals, human excrement or acts of violence”.

Last year, 96 per cent of the reports of suspected cases involved child pornography.

The cybercrime unit said the rise was directly tied to the increase in Web 2.0 applications available to the public which are being used to exchange pornographic material more quickly and anonymously.

Reported cases of internet fraud have also continued to increase. Fedpol said online classified ads and auction websites were often misused by dubious firms.

Of the 6,200 suspected cases of cybercrime reported to Fedpol last year, 299 were passed on to the justice authorities.

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SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR