A concerning trend has emerged in the UK, with children increasingly reporting explicit deepfake images featuring their likenesses. The Report Remove service has revealed that it has received 420 reports in just the first half of this year, a figure that has already surpassed the total number of reports from the entirety of 2025. This alarming rise highlights the urgent need for enhanced safety measures amidst the growing capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) in creating such content.
The Alarming Rise of Deepfake Reports
The Report Remove service, which aims to shield children from intimate images being shared online, has observed a rapid proliferation of digitally altered images, particularly those manipulated using AI tools. The service, operated by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) in collaboration with the NSPCC, has noted that the reports from under-18s reflect a troubling reality: the ease with which benign images can be transformed into harmful content.
In the first six months of 2026 alone, the service has recorded 420 reports, a significant jump from the previous year’s total of 397. Dan Sexton, the chief technology officer at the IWF, emphasised the gravity of this situation, stating, “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.”
The Role of AI in Facilitating Harm
The capability of AI to manipulate images has raised serious concerns among experts. Sexton pointed out that the increasing sophistication of AI tools has made it easier to create explicit content, underscoring fears expressed when AI image generators first emerged. “This is one of the harms we were worried about when we first saw AI image generators being used,” he noted, indicating that the implications of this technology extend beyond mere manipulation to potentially creating illegal content featuring real children.
The IWF has indicated that a significant portion of the reports received in 2025 and 2026 were severe enough to classify as child sexual abuse material (CSAM). In the UK, it is illegal to produce or distribute AI-generated CSAM, reflecting the government’s commitment to combating this pressing issue.
Calls for Stronger Safety Measures
As the reports increase, so too do the calls for tech companies to implement more robust safety measures in their AI systems. Rani Govender, an online safety expert at the NSPCC, expressed her alarm at the trend, stating, “This rise in children reaching out because fake or AI-generated sexual images have been created of them is alarming but also sadly predictable.” Govender urged technology firms to embed strong protections within their AI products to help prevent the creation of explicit materials in the first place.
Victims of deepfake manipulation have reported experiences of sextortion, where perpetrators threaten to publish explicit images unless they receive payment or additional compromising material. The Report Remove service provides an avenue for children to anonymously flag such images, converting them into a digital fingerprint that can be shared with major tech platforms for removal or prevention of their upload.
Guidance for Parents and Guardians
In light of these developments, the National Crime Agency and IWF have issued recommendations for parents and guardians to safeguard their children online. They advise keeping identifiable images of children off public platforms, suggesting that social media profiles be made private and photos shared only with a close circle of friends. This guidance comes in response to worrying instances where cybercriminals have utilised AI to fabricate CSAM from publicly available images, leading to blackmail threats against schools.
As concerns mount, the emphasis on protecting children in the digital landscape has never been more critical. The rise of deepfakes not only poses a risk to individual children but also raises broader questions about online privacy and security.
Why it Matters
The escalating reports of explicit deepfakes involving children signal a significant crisis in online safety, necessitating immediate action from both technology companies and policymakers. As AI technologies continue to evolve, so does the potential for misuse, making it imperative for robust protective measures to be established. The safety of our children in the digital realm depends on the vigilance of guardians, the responsibility of tech firms, and the commitment of society to combat this insidious trend.
