Police are investigating reports that nude photos of several Emmaus High School students are on a pornographic website.
It appears that the students took their own nude photos and willingly shared them, and "they got into the wrong hands," Emmaus Police Sgt. Charles Palmer told the Morning Call.
While the students’ nude photos have likely been on the pornography site for a while, they were only just discovered.
Parents and other concerned citizens have contacted police about the unwanted exposure, prompting several difference police jurisdictions, the state Attorney General, and the Lehigh County District Attorney to join the investigation, reports the Morning Call.
Police would not say exactly how many students’ nude photos are on the site, and Palmer told the Morning Call that this "may or may not come to anything criminal."
"In the last couple months, we've been getting hammered with reports of middle school and high school kids who are producing their own [nude] images and sharing them on social networking sites," Lt. Dave Peifer, head of the state's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, told the Morning Call. "Once an image is out there, it can be recopied, then recopied, and the next thing you know, it's all around the world."
This is not the first time something of this nature has happened in the Emmaus area.
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In 2008, police investigated Parkland High School students after sexual images were sent out to more than 40 students through cell phones.
In 2009, a 15-year-old Emmaus High School student took hundreds of photos and videos up girls’ and teachers’ skirts and posted them on the Internet.
