Parents, beware: Your children may be sending cryptic messages on their mobile phones that could put them in danger.
The warning came from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Newry and Mourne as posted on its Facebook page.
To help ensure that children do not fall prey to the schemes of people with criminal minds, the police force shared a guide to secret texting codes on its Facebook page. PSNI Newry and Mourne said this is meant to enable parents to understand the cryptic messages that they may find on their children's phones.
The guide was first issued in the United States in the Kim Komando show, a popular radio talk programme about consumer technology. PSNI Newry and Mourne said the guide is relevant not only to parents in the U.S. but also to those in the U.K.
The codes listed on the guide include NIFOC, which stands for "naked in front of computer."
Then there is IWSN, which translates to "I want sex now."
Aside from texting codes for sex, the guide also shows secret references to drugs such as "420" for marijuana. Alarmingly, the guide even includes KMS and KYS, which mean "kill myself" and "kill yourself," respectively.
Belfast Live even updated the list of terms used in the U.K., including ASL, which stands for "age, sex, location," and LMIRL, which means "let's meet in real life."
Some of the commenters in the PSNI Newry and Mourne Facebook page found the secret texting codes list funny.
However, the subject is actually no laughing matter since, according to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), one in seven young people have taken a naked or semi naked picture of themselves, and more than half went on to share the image with someone else, the Daily Mail reported.
NSPCC also found out that between 15 and 40 percent of young people are involved in "sexting."
On average, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre reportedly receives a report of one serious incident of sexting activity every day by schools, parents or pupils.
