04 December 2023 , 10:38
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Thousands of young people are caught sharing or watching indecent images of children online every year, an investigation has revealed.
Police forces across England, Wales and Northern Ireland have discovered that the majority of people watching or sharing child abuse content online are under 18. Detective chief inspector Tony Garner, from West Mercia Police, described the findings as "scary" and said the situation feels "completely out of control".
He added children were becoming "desensitised" by early exposure to pornography - and said police were noticing an "increasing interest in shocking material after being exposed to violent pornography." He said that without intervention, kids are becoming addicted to harmful material.
He said: "Let's say you are a 12-year-old boy and you look online for sexual videos of girls your own age. It's natural [that] young people will be curious in this way. But what they find is rape and abuse material. It's horrific. Or we might find a 14-year-old boy who is uploading indecent images of himself, maybe he is being groomed or blackmailed."
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request submitted by The Guardian found that across 21 police forces that provided data, more than 6,000 children and teenagers were identified in 2022. The findings showed that a total of 3,591 children from the same forces were identified as watching or sharing online child abuse images between January and October this year.
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The newspaper reported that in Cambridgeshire, the number of underage people watching or sharing child abuse has risen from 78 out of 130 offenders in 2018 to 329 out of 417 in 2023. In West Mercia, which covers Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire, 436 under-18s have been visited by officers so far this year.
In Northern Ireland, 301 out of 420 individuals identified in 2023 were under 18. Figures from Scotland are not available as Police Scotland did not provide data.
Last week, web safety groups warned that children are using Artificial Intelligence to create indecent images of other kids. The UK Safer Internet Centre said it has received reports from schools that children are making or attempting to make indecent images of other youngsters using AI image generators. The child protection organisation said such images - which legally constitute child sexual abuse material - could have a harmful impact on kids and may be used to abuse or blackmail them.
UKSIC has urged schools to ensure their filtering and monitoring systems were able to effectively block illegal material across school devices in an effort to combat the rise of such activity. Director David Wright said: "We are now getting reports from schools of children using this technology to make and attempt to make indecent images of other children.
"This technology has enormous potential for good, but the reports we are seeing should not come as a surprise. Young people are not always aware of the seriousness of what they are doing, yet these types of harmful behaviours should be anticipated when new technologies, like AI generators, become more accessible to the public."
He added: "We clearly saw how prevalent sexual harassment and online sexual abuse was from the Ofsted review in 2021, and this was a time before generative AI technologies. Although the case numbers are currently small, we are in the foothills and need to see steps being taken now, before schools become overwhelmed and the problem grows.
"An increase in criminal content being made in schools is something we never want to see, and interventions must be made urgently to prevent this from spreading further. We encourage schools to review their filtering and monitoring systems and reach out for support when dealing with incidents and safeguarding matters."