Safeguarding email - weird phishing attempt, amateur hunter team, or fake?

[_Jo_]

We received an email via our website contact form, stating urgent safeguarding action is needed.

 

The email starts:

 

"We are an Online App Safeguarding team and we monitor very dangerous ONLINE LIVE APPS some of which are recommended 18+"

They claim to have found a pupil putting themselves at risk on UNICO and say "This app is full of predatory adults and children are being sexually exploited."

 

It reads like something you'd get from a hunter / hunter team.

 

• They have provided a Gmail address of "nameteamuk" (team name withheld for now)
  
• They want us to provide an email address so they can send a photograph and details about the child. (Depending on the photo, this could be a bad idea.)
  
• It's signed off by an individual, but they refer to themselves as a team.
  
• They don't mention the name of the team in the email at all. It is signed off as "Name, Team manager".
  
• I've searched the team name from the email address, and variations of it (and the name of the individual) and can't find anything relevant at all.
  
• The language used sounds like the content of a PH facebook group e.g. "This app is full of predatory adults and children are being sexually exploited.".
  
• They also state that "the team have not seen any sign of sexual exploitation", but that "the child received inappropriate comments" whilst online.
  

 

Has anyone else seen anything similar to this?

There are no spelling or grammar errors; it looks like an attempt to appear like a legitimate organisation, but I'm confused as to why they would reach out to the school, and not the police or CEOP.

[bald_pig]

How would they know that it's a pupil from your school? I'd report the whole thing to the police, your safeguarding lead will probably have a contact for a liason officer, as it's either a scam, or something that should be reported to the police anyway.

[synaesthesia]

Raise this with your DSL with the view to bringing it up with your local police. Do not make any contact with them whatsoever .

[TechMonkey]

Pass to your Police liaison, they may have had dealings with this 'group' or something similar before. Definitely sounds like an amateur hunter but part of me feels it would be remiss not to get the info and speak to the child in question. I imagine by photo they mean screenshot.

If you get the OK from the police, maybe setup a dummy email account that if it turns out to be a scam the address can be closed. If you are feeling particularly paranoid maybe only access that email and any attachments from a fresh account with no admin rights.

 

EDIT: I wondered about how they would know to contact the right school but it could be they were asked about it or just gave the school name out which would be a concern on its own.

Edited January 9, 2020 by TechMonkey

[_Jo_]

On first read I thought it was a weird phish, but as I typed up the forum post here it really set in my mind that it's a PH team. Safeguarding lead is dealing with it, we won't be making contact directly.

[Garacesh]

Pass to your Police liaison, they may have had dealings with this 'group' or something similar before. Definitely sounds like an amateur hunter but part of me feels it would be remiss not to get the info and speak to the child in question. I imagine by photo they mean screenshot.

If you get the OK from the police, maybe setup a dummy email account that if it turns out to be a scam the address can be closed. If you are feeling particularly paranoid maybe only access that email and any attachments from a fresh account with no admin rights.

 

EDIT: I wondered about how they would know to contact the right school but it could be they were asked about it or just gave the school name out which would be a concern on its own.

 

This is probably the most likely, I'd suspect. My initial thought was an amateur team of 'paedophile hunters' (A quick Google search finds a myriad of them! PH Balance, Phoenix Predator Hunters, Elite Predator, Dank Dragon, Predator Exposure, Wolf Pack Hunters UK, etc).

Dealing with one member of a team isn't particularly unusual, though. I expect you'd find you do the same with your suppliers

 

The photograph is, as @TechMonkey said, most likely to actually mean 'screenshot'. Either of a chat log, or some kind of social media feed. But it also might not be, so keep your wits about you.

 

How they've identified the child remains a mystery. If I had to guess at specifics, judging from the content of the e-mail, I'd hazard that the child in question is posting to TikTok, possibly in their school uniform, or perhaps just being a bit loose-lipped about information.

 

Regardless, if you choose to proceed, do so in line with the Police and DSL's guidance and with him/her stood over your shoulder at all times.

 

Edit: Just seen your post. Fair enough. You might still need to be called on for your tech expertise depending on how clued-up your DSL is about the interwebs.

Edited January 9, 2020 by Garacesh

[_Jo_]

How they've identified the child remains a mystery. If I had to guess at specifics, judging from the content of the e-mail, I'd hazard that the child in question is posting to TikTok, possibly in their school uniform, or perhaps just being a bit loose-lipped about information.

 

They could have worn school uniform, mentioned the school by name or just the town. They said it was via UNICO App which I'd never heard of until this morning.

The Play store reviews are not good reading material. Reports of predators offering minors gifts to take their clothes off on live video.

 

EDIT: There are a lot of PH groups online, but this one came up blank. Shouldn't be surprised, there are probably a lot of smaller groups just doing their own thing without publicising it.

Edited January 9, 2020 by _Jo_

[Garacesh]

They could have worn school uniform, mentioned the school by name or just the town. They said it was via UNICO App which I'd never heard of until this morning.

Ah, must have glossed over the app name bit.

 

The Play store reviews are not good reading material. Reports of predators offering minors gifts to take their clothes off on live video.

Yarp, a Google search comes up with a lot of negative news too.

⛔️ Safeguarding ALERT: UNICO LIVE App ⛔️ - Safer Schools

Unico Live - police warning over 'unmonitored inappropriate content' in video app aimed at kids - Birmingham Mail

Police warning to North Staffordshire parents over children's app with 'inappropriate content' - Stoke-on-Trent Live

Edited January 9, 2020 by Garacesh