Published: Tue 23 Jun 2026
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) welcomes the political agreement reached today on the recast Child Sexual Abuse Directive, and hails it as an important step forward in strengthening the European Union’s response to child sexual abuse and exploitation.
By addressing the misuse of artificial intelligence (AI) systems to create child sexual abuse material and bolstering the legal framework around other forms of abuse, the Directive closes critical gaps that have allowed offenders to exploit emerging technologies and legal inconsistencies across Member States.
The recast Directive will ensure that the criminalisation of the design, adaptation, distribution and supply of AI systems built specifically to generate child sexual abuse material becomes the minimum standard across the EU. It also introduces other important reforms, including the criminalisation of the possession of AI-generated child sexual abuse material and instruction manuals that facilitate abuse.
The legislation further strengthens protections against online grooming, including where offenders falsely present themselves as peers, and extends the minimum statutes of limitation to help survivors have a meaningful opportunity to seek justice when they are ready.
The IWF’s data underline why this legislation is needed. In 2025, we recorded a 154 per cent rise in reports of realistic AI-generated child sexual abuse imagery and saw AI-generated videos increase more than 260-fold in a single year. Our analysts have been clear that this material is not the crude, obviously synthetic content many people associate with generative AI. It is increasingly indistinguishable from genuine abuse and disproportionately depicts the most severe forms of exploitation.
The IWF also pays tribute to MEP Jeroen Lenaers and his team for their leadership in steering the legislation through the European Parliament. Their commitment to ensuring the Directive remained focused on the realities faced by victims has helped deliver a stronger and more future-proof framework for protecting children from sexual abuse and exploitation.
Following formal adoption of the legislation, the focus will turn to implementation. The IWF calls on Member States to transpose the Directive swiftly and in full so that these important protections can begin making a difference for children across Europe without delay.
The legal protections that allow companies in the EU to voluntarily detect, find, and remove child sexual abuse material on their platforms are about to expire, as legislative negotiations grind to a halt.
While providing legal certainty is desirable, the IWF says voluntary detection alone is not enough to meet the scale of the child sexual abuse crisis online.