FILE PHOTO - In this Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2019, photo a woman types on a keyboard in New York. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the federal government is working with police and security agencies to address sex trafficking and child pornography after a U.S. newspaper report highlighted activities of Montreal-based PornHub.

Image Credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Jenny Kane

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the federal government is working with police and security agencies to address sex trafficking and child pornography after a U.S. newspaper report highlighted activities of Montreal-based Pornhub.

"We are always extremely concerned with gender-based violence, with exploitation of minors, with child pornography," Trudeau said Friday outside his Ottawa residence.

"We're going to continue to work with police agencies and security agencies and all means possible to ensure that all Canadians are kept safe."

The New York Times examined the popular pornography website that attracts billions of visits monthly to videos including those purported to involve child rapes and exploitation.

A group of Canadian lawmakers recently petitioned the government to take action against Pornhub and its parent company Mindgeek for profiting from "mass sexual crime."

The letter to Justice Minister David Lametti followed a previous missive in the spring asking Trudeau to investigate.

Quebec’s Public Safety Minister Genevieve Guilbault said she’s disturbed by the allegations and hopes police are investigating.

Asked whether the site should be shut down at a press conference on Friday afternoon, Guilbault said she worries that if one site is shut down, another will take its place.

Ian Lafreniere, Quebec’s Indigenous affairs minister and a former police officer, said changes need to be made to help police officers conduct investigations and to help victims remove videos from the internet.

Those same recommendations were made in a report by Quebec’s select committee on the sexual exploitation of minors issued on Thursday, Lafreniere, who is a member of the committee, said Friday.

The committee also recommended the Quebec government make the necessary legal changes to force websites and other online platforms to co-operate with police and to erase all data connected with victims of sexual exploitation.

Among the recommendations was changing the definition of “place” in the Criminal Code. It can be difficult he said for police to act if the original crime took place in another country or the website’s servers are in a different jurisdiction.

Mindgeek is based in Montreal but it operates globally and jurisdiction is difficult to determine because it hosts content outside of Canada, said RCMP spokeswoman Cpl. Caroline Duval.

She said the RCMP has discussed the issue of jurisdiction with Mindgeek, in relation to the Criminal Code and the Mandatory Reporting Act.

The RCMP's National Child Exploitation Crime Centre (NCECC) receives Online Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) referrals from the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in the USA. Some of these reports are from Mindgeek (Pornhub), and every report is assessed and actioned.

The Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3Ps) offers a service known as Project Arachnid Shield to content hosting companies for the removal of CSE content.

NCECC works closely with International policing partners to serve take down notices to American and international Companies when jurisdiction can be ascertained.

PayPal cut off payment services for the company in late 2019 and credit card companies have been asked to do the same.

Visa and Mastercard didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

"American Express has a long-standing global policy that prohibits card acceptance on digital adult content websites," it wrote in an email.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 4, 2020.

News from © The Canadian Press, 2020