Child sex abuse imagery hit record levels last year

Record levels of web pages hosting child sexual abuse imagery were discovered in 2024, a leading online safety organisation has said.

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The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), which finds and helps remove abuse imagery online, said 291,273 reports of child sexual abuse imagery were reported in 2024.

In its annual report, the organisation said it was seeing rising numbers of cases being driven by threats, including AI-generated sexual abuse content, sextortion and the malicious sharing of nude or sexual imagery.

It said under-18s were now facing a crisis of sexual exploitation and risk online.

In response, the IWF announced it was making a new safety tool available to smaller websites for free, to help them spot and prevent the spread of abuse material on their platforms.

The tool, known as Image Intercept, can spot and block images in the IWF's database of more than 2.8 million which have been digitally marked as criminal imagery.

The IWF said it will give wide swathes of the internet new, 24-hour protection, and help smaller firms comply with the Online Safety Act.