Reports of fake sexual images involving children rise in the UK
More British children are reporting that nude or sexual images of themselves have been faked or digitally manipulated, with reports involving suspected manipulated imagery already exceeding the total recorded in 2025.
Hundreds of children in the UK have reported that nude or sexual images of themselves were faked or digitally manipulated, according to new figures from the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and Childline.
The data shows that, in the first six months of 2026, 420 reports submitted through the Report Remove service involved imagery that children believed had been faked. This compares with 397 such reports during the whole of 2025.
The figures include images that may have been generated or altered using AI, nudification tools, computer-generated imagery or other forms of image editing. They do not indicate that all reported images were created using AI.
Report Remove allows under-18s in the UK to report nude or sexual images of themselves that have been shared online or could be shared. IWF analysts assess the material, while Childline provides support to the young person.
A similar increase was recorded among reports involving imagery that IWF analysts confirmed met the legal threshold for child sexual abuse material. In 2025, 221 actioned reports involved suspected faked imagery. By the end of June 2026, the figure had reached 268.
The IWF is calling on technology companies to assess and introduce safeguards for image-generation systems before releasing them, with the aim of preventing their use to create child sexual abuse material.
The NSPCC has also called for stronger safeguards, arguing that companies should focus on preventing abusive material from being created rather than relying primarily on removing it after it appears online.
The IWF and the UK National Crime Agency have additionally warned that ordinary photographs of children shared online can be manipulated into realistic sexual abuse imagery, potentially exposing children to intimidation, sexual extortion and other forms of abuse.
