Parliamentarians join the IWF to tackle online child sexual abuse material

Published:  Tue 29 Apr 2025

On 28 April 2025, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) welcomed MPs, Peers, and parliamentary staffers to a drop-in session in Parliament to discuss the findings of our 2024 Annual Data and Insights Report – our most urgent and revealing report to date.

The session was hosted by Rotherham MP Sarah Champion, a long-time IWF Champion and tireless advocate for child protection, who also penned an op-ed for LBC about our 2024 Annual Data & Insights Report.

We are grateful to all those who attended and contributed to meaningful conversations about how we can better safeguard children online.

Topline data

This year’s report revealed an alarming rise in child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online. In 2024, the IWF discovered more child sexual abuse webpages than ever before. 291,273 reports were confirmed to either contain criminal imagery of child sexual abuse, link to this criminal imagery or were found advertising it (a 6% increase from 2023). 

The escalating numbers driven in part by new threats like AI-generated child sexual abuse and sexually coerced extortion.

AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material

Our new data reveals a sharp rise in AI-generated child sexual abuse material identified online by our analysts. In 2024, the IWF processed 245 reports containing actionable AI-generated child sexual abuse images –  a 380% increase compared to just 51 such reports in 2023.
This technology is inflicting real harm on real victims. Survivors are being re-victimised as images of their abuse are manipulated, repurposed, or used to train AI models. In some cases, photos of children are digitally altered to create even more extreme content. Alarmingly, nearly 40% of the AI-generated material reported to the IWF in 2024 was classified as Category A – the most severe level of abuse imagery.

Sexually Coerced Extortion

Sexually coerced extortion is a type of blackmail where someone tries to use intimate, naked or sexual images or videos of a person to blackmail or extort them, often for either more images or for money. Sometimes, these images or videos are taken without the knowledge of the person pictured. 

In 2024, we saw 175 actionable reports where this was a feature, 152 of these were reported to us directly from the public and the rest were as result of our proactive work. 151 of these reports came directly via the IWF and Childline Report Remove tool where we saw 138 reports from boys and 13 reports from girls. 

We would like to thank all who joined us for their commitment to protecting children online and stand ready to take forward action to address the issue of technology facilitated child sexual abuse.

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