A staggering rise in explicit deepfake images featuring children in the UK has emerged, raising serious concerns over online safety and the misuse of artificial intelligence. The Report Remove service, which assists in blocking intimate images from circulating online, reported that it received 420 alerts from children in just the first half of this year—outpacing the total number of reports from all of 2025. This troubling trend underscores the growing dangers posed by AI technology in the realm of digital content manipulation.
The Growing Threat of Deepfakes
The issue has become so pronounced that Dan Sexton, Chief Technology Officer at the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), which collaborates with the NSPCC to operate Report Remove, noted a concerning ease with which benign images can be transformed into harmful content. Sexton remarked, “If someone can take a benign image of a child from the internet and create child sexual abuse material with it, there is nothing that child can do to stop it from happening apart from preventing anyone from taking pictures of them—or not putting pictures of themselves online.”
In the first six months of 2026 alone, the number of reports has already surpassed the entirety of last year’s submissions, highlighting a worrying trend that is only expected to escalate. The service has even added a specific checkbox to its online form, allowing minors to flag images as deepfakes, reflecting the urgent need to address this growing issue.
The Role of Technology in Exploitation
Sexton expressed deep concern about the implications of advanced AI tools, stating that they have made it increasingly simple to manipulate images of real individuals. “This is one of the harms we were worried about when we first saw AI image generators being used, that they would be used to create child sexual abuse material featuring real children,” he said. With the majority of manipulated images reported in 2025 and 2026 classified as severe enough to meet the threshold for child sexual abuse material (CSAM), it is clear that the stakes are alarmingly high.
The UK government has taken steps to combat this growing threat by criminalising the adaptation of AI models to create abusive content. However, experts like Rani Govender from the NSPCC argue that tech companies must do more. “This rise in children reaching out because fake or AI-generated sexual images have been created of them is alarming but also sadly predictable,” she stated. “Tech companies cannot keep pushing out AI products without embedding strong protections that prevent this material from being created in the first place.”
Safeguarding Children Online
The IWF has reported that some victims have been targeted for sextortion, where perpetrators threaten to release explicit material unless victims comply with financial demands or provide additional compromising images. The Report Remove service is designed to empower children to report such incidents anonymously, converting flagged images into digital fingerprints or “hashes.” These hashes are then shared with major tech platforms to facilitate the removal of harmful content.
As the situation unfolds, authorities such as the National Crime Agency and IWF are urging parents and guardians to be vigilant. They recommend keeping children’s images private and limiting their exposure on social media. This caution is particularly relevant given recent incidents where cybercriminals have scraped images from schools, creating deepfake content to blackmail educational institutions.
Why it Matters
The rise of explicit deepfakes is not just a technical issue; it’s a profound societal challenge that threatens the safety and well-being of our children. The reality is that as AI technology advances, so too do the methods employed by those who would exploit it. This situation calls for immediate action from tech companies, policymakers, and society as a whole to protect vulnerable individuals and ensure a safer digital landscape for future generations. The implications of inaction could be devastating, making it imperative for all stakeholders to prioritise robust safety measures and protective legislation against this digital menace.