Australian police said Thursday they were combing through over a million files held by an alleged child sex offender, who local media identified as having worked with minors.
The Sydney man, who cannot be named due to court orders, was charged in July as part of an investigation into online child abuse material.
National broadcaster ABC said he was a childcare worker and that he had been charged with making child abuse material.
Australian Federal Police revealed Thursday the scope of material they were combing through on devices seized during a search of the man's home.
"Investigators have identified about 1.4 million electronic files on these devices. Of this, about 550,000 were unique images," Australian Federal Police Detective Superintendent Luke Needham said in a statement.
"The number of files does not provide any indication of the scale of the alleged offending," he stressed.
"Rather, this indicates the volume of work required by investigators," Needham said, adding: "The team continues to methodically review the electronic material."
The Sydney Morning Herald said it was not clear how many of the files were allegedly created by the man using children he had access to through his work, nor how many were allegedly downloaded or shared.
The man had worked at multiple daycare centres around Sydney for over a decade, the newspaper said.
A series of high-profile abuse cases have in recent months drawn the spotlight onto Australia's childcare sector.
This year, Victoria's Health Department recommended sexually transmitted disease tests for 1,200 children as part of an investigation into alleged sexual assaults by childcare worker Joshua Dale Brown.
The New South Wales state government also introduced landmark legislation to parliament on Wednesday to increase regulatory powers over the sector.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
