Child sexual abuse in online contexts continues to be a significant concern for professionals working with children and families. Research and practice insights tell us that digital technologies can feature in almost all types of child sexual abuse and is preventable with the right interventions from tech companies, but different data sources suggest that online child sexual abuse offences are growing both in number and complexity.
In an effort to mitigate some of the risks children face online, including sexual abuse, last week the Government announced a social media ban for children under the age of 16 that will restrict their access to a range of platforms. This ban is planned to come into force in Spring 2027, yet there remain many questions about how these restrictions will be implemented, monitored, and whether children’s own voices will shape future policy and professional responses.
Until then, this announcement serves as a timely reminder about the scale of child sexual abuse in online contexts and other online harms. Understandably, professionals will be asking what they can do to support the children and families they work with.
The scale and impact of child sexual abuse in online contexts
Various official sources record data on online child sexual abuse offences, but this only captures what has been reported and will be a significant underestimate. According to the National Centre for Violence Against Women & Girls and Public Protection (NCVPP), offences in online contexts increased by 26% in 2024 and account for at least 42% of all offences. A third of victims of online harm were aged 12-13-years-old. Snapchat (54%), WhatsApp (8%) and Instagram (8%) were the top three platforms identified. Out of all the child sexual abuse offences recorded, image offences were the most prevalent offence type for the first time (29%).
The nature and medium of child sexual abuse in online contexts can also change rapidly. For example, generative artificial intelligence tools are used increasingly to create or alter images to produce child sexual abuse material. In 2025, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) discovered 3,443 photo-realistic videos of child sexual abuse produced using artificial intelligence, compared to just 13 in 2024. The most recent Crime Survey for England and Wales also found that nearly one in five women aged 18–24 said they had experienced non-contact child sexual abuse (such as image-based abuse or indecent exposure), compared with one in 10 of those aged 25–34, and rates declined further among older age groups.
Beyond the numbers, the impacts of child sexual abuse in online contexts vary widely and can be severe and lifelong. It can lead to feelings of guilt, shame and self-blame, with children sometimes feeling they were in some way complicit in the abuse. It also makes victims vulnerable to further sexual abuse, for example, when images are used to blackmail them. When images of a child have been shared, there is the potential for the child to be revictimised over and over again, every time an image is watched, sent or received. This impact can persist into adulthood, with victims and survivors reporting that they worry constantly about being recognised by a person who has viewed the material, and some have been recognised in this way. The ongoing availability of the material means that achieving ‘closure’ can feel impossible.
Victim blaming responses can also contribute to the impact felt by children; this can be avoided if the response that children receive when they report online harm does not position them as being responsible, in any way, for what has happened to them. When a child or children receives a calm, helpful and non-judgemental response to something they have reported or experienced online, this can itself be a protective factor as they are more likely to come forward again if they or a peer experience further harm.
What we know about the new social media ban
While we know that online child sexual abuse is by no means limited to social media platforms, the new ban is designed, at least in part, to reduce the risk posed by these services to under-16s, including platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram from next Spring. Additional measures intend to protect under-18s from “high-risk” features like livestreaming, or receiving messages from strangers. Further consideration is being given to curfews restricting children’s access to online platforms overnight, and limits to ‘infinite scrolling’. More detail will follow and close attention paid when the Government publishes its full response to the Growing up in the online world consultation in July.
There remain concerns about children being drawn into riskier and less regulated spaces if they are restricted from social media, which could place them at greater risk of sexual abuse and exploitation online. It will be essential that steps are taken to mitigate these risks as a priority, given that it is known that many children have been able to circumvent age-verifications in other contexts.
Tech companies must also continue to be held to account on protecting children, and indeed all users, from harm, rather than the onus being on parents, carers and children themselves to try to navigate online spaces safely. It is important to recognise and respond to children at every age and stage of development, and also remember that 16- and 17- year-olds are still children. The spaces they are able to access on their 16th birthday must therefore be safe and free from potentially harmful material. Restricting harmful features and functionalities are welcome measures but they will only go so far; more must be done to make platforms safe by design and the responsibilities of tech companies cannot end at highly effective age assurance.
Where tech companies and service providers fail to ensure children’s safety, robust enforcement from Ofcom is needed through the measures already available via the Online Safety Act. Reflecting on learnings from the Act’s first year of implementation around successful compliance and enforcement, the regulator has called for any new Government regulations to be “as clear and specific as possible”. The Technology Secretary has also pledged to increase Ofcom’s powers and funding to implement these new restrictions, and to also tackle harmful online content and child sexual abuse material.
We know that children will not automatically be safer from online sexual abuse through placing restrictions on their access to digital platforms alone. Many children who have been sexually abused online will have been harmed by people that are known to them, including other children and/or people in their own family. It will continue to be important that children feel able to have open conversations with the safe people in their lives about what they are experiencing or being exposed to online, if not even more so.
Strengthening the professional response
Given the increasingly online aspect to all forms of child sexual abuse, we can prepare ourselves to support children and their families following incidents of online child sexual abuse. Abuse that has been facilitated by technology may also bring specific impacts for a child and make it more difficult for them to talk about what they have experienced. Professionals need to be able to identify and respond to children who are being harmed and to those who pose a risk of harm, which includes children engaging in harmful sexual behaviour.
We have a range of resources to help professionals, including our recently published Child Sexual Abuse Response Pathway, which sets out how to respond to concerns of child sexual abuse at key points through the multi-agency response, focusing throughout on the needs of children and their families. There is specific information on how any professional working with children can respond when they discover or learn about sexually abusive images of a child or other online harms, with particular focus given to how you can best help the child by talking to them, letting them know how they can get help, and protecting them from further harm, including how to report images to be removed and taken down. Further information is also provided on how to support the child’s emotional, physical, educational and relationship needs and also how to manage risk and support the whole family when a parent has accessed child sexual abuse material.
In April, we also published a guide on responding to technology-assisted harmful sexual behaviour that is intended to support professional judgement and explains what all staff can when an incident comes to their attention, how the child who has been harmed can be supported, and how to respond to a child who has displayed technology-assisted harmful sexual behaviour.
Our comprehensive new guide to finding, sharing and using information can help different agencies and organisations to better respond to child sexual abuse, including in online contexts. Legislation makes clear that secure information sharing is a legal and moral duty for all professionals involved in children’s welfare. Given those seeking to protect children from online child sexual abuse rely on fragmented information, this resource can help multi-agency professionals to collectively identify risk quicker and earlier, and instil confidence in sharing evidence in a timely and proportionate way.
What next?
As further detail on the proposed restrictions emerges, it will be important to consider how these new measures contribute to a wider system of prevention and protection of online child sexual abuse and other online harms. Pivotal to this will be the ongoing strengthening of how professionals identify, respond to, and support children affected by online sexual abuse. For both policy and practice, a child-centred approach grounded in evidence and supported by effective partnership working is essential to keeping more children safe.
Please visit our training and events page for details on our upcoming free webinars and paid courses, including the Response Pathway (free – 15 July) and Harmful sexual behaviour in online contexts (up to 25 participants, £480 / £530 (in-person) + VAT)
