Phone Apps A Child Predator Playground, Ocean Prosecutor Warns

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Do you know what apps your children have on their smartphones? More importantly, do you know what they are doing with them?

The Ocean County prosecutor's office once again is urging parents to take a look at their children's phones and be aware of what they are doing following the arrest of a convicted sex offender who was living in Lakewood and who is alleged to have been soliciting explicit videos of sexual acts from children via one of the apps.

Samuel Schwinger, 34, of Lakewood, was arrested April 5 after parents of an Oklahoma girl contacted law enforcement there about someone asking the girl to send sexually explicit photos of herself, Prosecutor Bradley Billhimer said. The continuing investigation led to charges of aggravated sexual assault and child endangerment against Scwhinger, whom Billhimer said was contacting children via the Live.Me app. "Numerous videos" of children performing sexual acts were found during a forensic investigation of Schwinger's phone, the prosecutor's office said.

"Parents should be aware that Live.Me is an app used for livestreaming videos," the prosecutor's office said in a Facebook post on Friday. "Live.Me is being used by child predators to entice children to livestream inappropriate videos of themselves."

The Live.Me app also uses virtual currency that can be converted to actual money, the prosecutor's office said.

"This means child predators can bribe your children into livestreaming inappropriate videos of themselves," the prosecutor's office said. And because Live.Me shares users’ geolocation — it saves data showing where a video is being recorded — "child predators can come right to your door," the prosecutor's office said.

The app has been downloaded by 90 million people, and while the user agreement requires users to be 18 years old or have parental permission, many people ignore that requirement. Live.Me recently deleted 600,000 accounts after learning that those users were under 13 years old, the prosecutor's office said.

Live.Me is not the only app and way child predators are using to access children online. In a sting conducted last September titled "Operation Open House," 24 men were arrested on charges of trying to meet up with a juvenile to have sex, the New Jersey Attorney General's office said. Many of those were trying to contact children through the popular video game Fortnite, where users engage in battles with other users via internet connections.

Authorities involved with Operation Open House say the men typically initiated contact based on profiles posted on social media platforms and continued to talk with the "children" despite knowing they were underage.

The Ocean County prosecutor's office posted a list of other apps that parents need to pay attention to, whether their children are younger or are teenagers. In addition to Live.Me, SnapChat and Instagram, others that need to be monitored are Yubo, described as "a Tindr for teens;" Monkey, which randomly connects users for 10-second videos, with pornography prevalent on the app; Kik, which makes it easy to chat with anyone; and Meet Me, which allows users to chat with other users online and matches them by location, making it easier to connect in person. A number of apps allow kids to communicate semi-anonymously and have been used for cyberbullying, including Ask.fm, Wishbone and Whisper.

There also are a number of apps that allow users to hide chats, photos and more on their phones, the prosecutor's office noted, and parents should search "secret," "hidden," "private," on the app store to see what those apps look like.

Child predators are using these apps to abuse and exploit children, and it's a constantly changing landscape.

"Parents must be vigilant in monitoring their children’s online activity. It is imperative to know what your children are sharing, looking at and who they are communicating with," Billhimer said. "Parents should always set app purchases and downloads to be contingent on parental approval."

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