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The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre will tap into a range of resources, including information from the likes of Microsoft, AOL and VISA, as well as law enforcement agencies and children's charities to tackle child abuse in all its forms, including the Internet.

CEO of the new CEOP Centre, Jim Gamble, former Deputy Director General of the National Crime Squad, said: 'The CEOP Centre is the most significant development in child protection in recent years and is a direct response to the explosion in online child abuse. Our challenge therefore is this - to make the internet a safer environment for your child.

'What we have to understand is that behind every image online there is a child in the real world being abused. Behind every online chat there is the potential that your child may be speaking to a sex offender. That is a harsh reality.'

Gamble's stern warnings are borne out by the scale of the problem. The centre says one recent operation turned up three-quarters of a million images, and that one in 12 children in the UK have met someone offline with whom they first made contact online.

The announcement

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coincides with efforts in the US to strengthen legislation in this area. Last week US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales rolled out even more alarming figures. He claimed that 20 per cent of children that go online are solicited and that 50,000 paedophiles are online at any given time.

CEOP will build systems for tracking sex offenders on an international scale, and ensure information is available to those who need it.

There will also be special operatives trained to seize assets from those caught trading in child porn, and the centre is partnering with Visa to create harsher penalties for those using online payment systems to make these transactions.

The centre will have direct input into ensuring safeguards are present in commercial online services and technical advances.

There will also be a series of public services for the reporting of this type of crime as well as tools to raise awareness and education.

Furthermore, training will be given to a range of agencies to help them deal with child abuse successfully.

In October of last year, the Crown Prosecution Service, which is working closely with CEOP, proposed making possession of violent pornographic material a criminal offence. It has an expanding team of 110 lawyers specially trained to crack down on Internet crime and child pornography, allowing them to get to grips with the technical issues and explain them to a jury.

Gamble has great expectations for the centre. He said: 'Let us be clear. If you are a sex offender - get help or get caught. The Internet will increasingly expose you to new policing powers and will cease to be the anonymous place that it once was.'