Fresh from its court victory against tech giant Meta, The Digital Law Company (TDLC) now faces another uphill battle – tracing who is behind the accounts and profiles linked to the online porn racket targeting local teens.

As previously reported, the court ruling gave Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp and Instagram, until Monday night to hand over the first batch of information about the accounts – seemingly operated by the same person or people – to TDLC.

The network was involved in soliciting private and pornographic images of SA schoolchildren, which were uploaded through an anonymous platform and made public on six WhatsApp channels and 30 Instagram profiles.

The Sunday Times reports that TDLC – essentially digital media lawyer Emma Sadleir and her colleague Rorke Wilson – received a second load of data by Wednesday, as agreed.

‘And now we are starting with the forensic investigation with the end aim being to help the victims firstly and then find the perpetrators and hold them to account,’ Wilson said.

He said they had been flooded with requests for help and to give talks at schools, and were battling to keep up with their workload.

But while the company has been provided with the information it asked for, a great deal more digging is required.

Wilson and Sadleir are also limited by the court order as to what they may do with the information. They are allowed only to make disclosures to law enforcement.

‘Out of the information we received for 30 accounts, we have nine cellphone numbers. There are a few more IP addresses and device identifiers, so now we will start with serving subpoenas on the service providers to give us the user information,’ Wilson said.

Full Sunday Times report