Safety In A Wired World

Rob Nickel talks with parents and teachers

Former Ontario Provincial Police officer Rob Nickel, warned parents of the dangers children face everyday on the internet during his keynote speech Thursday at the St. Joseph-Scollard Hall Secondary School.

During his 14-year career, Nickel worked undercover online with Internet predators as part of the OPP Crime Unit and those experiences led him to writing “Staying Safe in a Wired World'. The book led to his appearance on the Doctor Phil show this past Monday.

While on the show the he demonstrated how fast a paedophile can hook up with another, and the need for parents to be involved in their child’s safety while Online. Advocating for parents not to put a computer in the a child's room and using screening software.

Nickel's segment illustrates how easy paedophiles network, by running a sting operation, that had him meet with a paedophile online and then in person. This person then began to tell Nickel how to start molesting his daughters. Watching in horror Dr. Phil asked how anyone could stay levelheaded when carrying out his or her job in this situation.

“Desensitising, it's more getting used to it, like I said to Dr Phil, if I waver from it and let the emotions get the best of me, then I go out of role.”

“So really, before I go to meet somebody like that (or when I did, because I don't really do that any more) you get into a role, and you'd say this is who I am. This is my undercover persona, so sit in it, and do it, because you’re one of them might now. Just get in there and do it,” states Nickel.

Nickel says he had wanted to be an actor and that may have helped him stay in character and adopt the mentality to stay focused on the end result. His primary reason for being there in the first place, to get the right evidence and nail the perpetrator, and then prosecute them in the courts.

“If I lose my cool, then all of a sudden he (the predator) knows oh this guy must be a cop, and you just lost it. So, we really want keep it as best as possible like a disguise, one of us get as much information as you can. My big job was to make sure the guy got convicted for it."

“Yeah, Doctor Phil also asked me, ‘do you just want to take a shower when you get home’, and yeah you feel very gross. Probably worse as you know a lot of people are looking at it.”

“Even when I was a police officer, I’d have to play my transcripts in court or read chat logs that I had with somebody and it was a little bit embarrassing, because I'm talking like them. But to get the dirty you have to be dirty.”

Nickel also talked about his tactics and how he used them in order to catch the online predators. Telling parents to think like the bad guy, as he always does. Demonstrating in less then 5 minutes how he was able to locate the house of a 14-year old girl in Southern Ontario, through her profile posted on MSN. He was proving a point to the audience that their children don’t know that they are opening the door to predators.

“I went in and pretended I was a newby at it, and I let the bad guys teach me. I would go online, and let them teach me what is the things we should be doing, especially when it came to trading child pornography, and things like that.”

“I'd let them teach me and there’s nothing better than having the bad guy teach you how to catch a bad guy. So that's really how I got good at it, and then share the information with other officers.”

As parents listened to the sound advice being offered by Nickel, some parents suggested his retirement was a huge loss to the war on online crime, the modest Nickel says with intense training around the world for police there are better-qualified officers in his place.

“There's a lot of really good officers doing what I used to do online, so don't think I was the only one doing it. There's a ton of guys out there that do it all better than I do. So now there's a lot of guys out there, online.”

Nickel reinforced that although there are a great number of cops undercover doing the work, they are not the only ones who play a role in protecting kids online.

“The number one rule, parents have to get involved. You know, I been doing this for a very long time, talking to a lot of parenting groups, and I realise that is the one thing that has to be done ... period.”

“Parents have to start taking control, whether they know how it works or not. I always say, I don't know how car engine works, I have no idea, I step on the gas and the goes, but I still make sure that my kids are buckled up when they're in the backseat.”

He said parents may not know how something works doesn't mean that they can be complacent with their child’s safety, they have to reach further down and learn how the Internet works.

“And that's why I wrote the book. I wrote the book, so that parents instead of feeling all freaked out about it, can take it and read it and understand a little bit more. Get more familiar with it so they can now start working with kids and seeing what they are doing online and taking more of an active role. That is the number-one job right there.”

His decision to move on and leave the force, not because he couldn’t handle the stress of what he was doing in his job, but rather because he had other opportunities.

“Retiring had nothing to do with that, it was just time from me to do my own thing, I had some other things on the go with other companies and it was my time to leave.”

“I had seen a lot in my career, it had nothing to do with like I got freaked out and I can't handle this. But there is one case that I'm proud of, it's the one over in Sault Ste. Marie. It was just because I had met with him over coffee, and we found out about 14 victims that nobody knew about until he talked with me. So, now we've got these 14 children to come forward and they can get the help and not only that, but we stopped a lot more are from being victimised. So, it’s cases like that, that make you feel good about what you've done and what you're doing as a police officer” he says.

Nickel has been out of the police game for a while but says he will always have an affinity to the service, especially in light of the recent officers killed in the line of duty.

“People ask me the same thing, do you miss being a police officer, it was that camaraderie. I miss the guys, and when you do see something like that on the news a police officers being killed.”

“As far as I'm concerned, I will always be a cop, I am always part of that brotherhood, it's just that I don't get paid by the many more, I just don't do the work any more, but I think especially as I joined the force when I was 20, that's all I knew for 14 years, was policing. So you do become very close with other officers, and I'm still in contact. I got two calls, and I says to work with, just driving up here today, so I'm still in contact with all the guys, but that it is what I miss the most, the guys on the force.”

In closing Nickel adds that staying safe in the wired world doesn’t just apply to kids, adults need to be just as cautious.

“Our age on the net, you’ve still got a be careful, you've got to watch what you put out there, you’ve got to watch the information and make sure that you’re not meeting with people that you shouldn't be meeting with.”
Rob Nickel