Europe’s largest hotline, the Internet Watch Foundation, is using this year’s Safer Internet Day to urge the European Commission to bring forward long awaited legislation to address the growing threat to children online.
New data reveals AI child sexual abuse continues to spread online as criminals create more realistic, and more extreme, imagery.
We've been working with the Council of Europe on furthering countries and nations' commitments to children’s rights and raising awareness about child sexual abuse.
IWF paper sets out how end-to-end encrypted messaging can be protected from child sexual abuse without breaking encryption.
The debate on the EU’s proposed Child Sexual Abuse Regulation (CSAR) has been dominated by one loud slogan. A slogan which may have dire consequences for the safety and wellbeing of millions of children worldwide.
On 3 April, essential child protection systems used by technology companies to detect and remove online child sexual abuse material will become illegal to operate in the EU unless the European Parliament votes to extend the current legal framework. A temporary law allowing voluntary detection is expiring, and political deadlock has stalled a permanent solution. This will create a dangerous legal vacuum that perpetrators are aware of and poised to exploit. Proven tools like hash‑matching - which do not compromise privacy - would be forced offline, enabling millions of known abusive images to resurface. Research shows these systems deter offenders and make access harder; disabling them will reverse this progress. MEPs have one final chance to act by voting for an amendment that preserves protections for children across Europe.
The IWF is one of the most effective hotlines in the world at removing child sexual abuse imagery from the internet, but this has only been possible thanks to the key international partnerships.
Dutch MEP Jeroen Lenaers visits the IWF offices in Cambridge, UK, to hear directly from frontline experts about the harms of AI in the fight against online child sexual abuse.
From 3 April, the EU will become the only region worldwide without legal certainty allowing technology companies to detect child sexual abuse material online, prompting urgent warnings from child protection experts and global tech organisations. A coalition of 246 civil society groups and major industry players has condemned lawmakers for failing to extend the temporary legal framework that permitted privacy‑preserving detection tools, leaving companies unsure whether safeguarding systems remain lawful. With the EU already hosting the highest concentration of known child sexual abuse material - 62% of confirmed webpages in 2024 - experts warn the situation will worsen, reducing detections, hampering investigations, and emboldening offenders. As the EU’s proposed permanent legislation remains deadlocked, industry leaders and protection advocates stress that immediate action is essential to prevent increased harm to children across Europe and beyond.