| Queensland Police Service | |
|---|---|
| Motto | With Honour We Serve |
| Agency overview | |
| Formed | 1 January, 1864 |
| Employees | 10,237 |
| Jurisdictional structure | |
| Operations jurisdiction | Queensland, Australia |
| General nature | |
| Operational structure | |
| Headquarters | 200 Roma Street, Brisbane, QLD 4000 27°27′59″S 153°01′06″E / 27.4664°S 153.0182°E |
| Units | List
|
| Website | |
| www.police.qld.gov.au/ | |
Task Force Argos is a branch of the Queensland Police Service, responsible for the investigation of online child exploitation and abuse.[1][2] Founded in 1997, the unit's original charter was to investigate institutional child abuse allegations arising from the Forde Inquiry.
The unit's name was derived from Greek mythology, in which Argus Panoptes, or Argos, was a primordial "all seeing" giant with multiple eyes, guardian of the goddess Io. As protector of the goddess, Argos was great and strong: sleep never fell upon his eyes, and he kept sure watch always.
Technological advances and wider access to the Internet led the unit in 2002 to explore avenues to address growing community concern over the proliferation of child exploitation across the internet. Argos identified potential threats to children in online chat rooms, where sexual predators were grooming children and recruiting them to engage in sexual activity.