Child porn, ID theft drive record cyber crime in Japan

Internet crime in Japan jumped to a new record last year, led by ID theft and database attacks, child pornography posts and copyright violations, the national police agency said Thursday.

Police made arrests or took other action in 6,690 cases in 2009, up 5.8 percent from the previous year and the highest figure since data was first collated in 2000. The number has more than doubled in four years.

Child pornography cases nearly doubled to 507 last year, police said in a report, while cases of illegally accessing bank sites and other databases jumped to a record of 2,534 cases, surging by more than 45 percent.

Fraud in online auctions, however, fell by 54 percent to 522 cases as major sites such as Rakuten and Yahoo improved their settlement systems, preventing sellers from being paid before the goods are delivered.

Copyright infringements rose more than 30 percent to 188 cases.

The police also said they intervened after a record 223 postings of suicidal intentions, up by almost one quarter from 2008. The postings involved 228 people, two of whom were later found dead.

(c) 2010 AFP