Internet Watch Foundation reports huge rise in AI child sexual abuse material

AI-generated child sexual abuse material is proliferating online, with the amount of illegal material investigated this year already exceeding the total for 2025. Analysts at the Internet Watch Foundation have found more photorealistic child sexual abuse material in the first half of 2026 than for the whole of the prior year. The UK-based IWF, which monitors abuse material globally, said it had assessed 6,310 AI images that met the legal definition of child sexual abuse, 40% higher than last year’s total of more…

By the Truvace deskOctober 15, 20262 min read1 sourceJournalismTRV-2026-1458· cite & verify

Internet Watch Foundation reports huge rise in AI child sexual abuse material

In brief

The Internet Watch Foundation, a UK-based group that monitors abuse material worldwide, reported that its analysts had assessed 6,310 AI-generated still images meeting the legal definition of child sexual abuse in the first half of 2026. That figure is already about 40% above the more than 4,500 recorded for all of 2025. Most of the images showed girls, and the children depicted were mostly aged seven to 13.

The figures matter because they point to growing misuse of generative tools against children, and the IWF argues voluntary safeguards are insufficient and wants binding regulation. The UK government says it is banning abuse-generating models, but has not signalled a new AI bill. The IWF count covers still images only, so the wider scale, including the rise in videos, is not captured in these numbers.

Main points

The IWF assessed 6,310 AI images meeting the legal definition of child sexual abuse, versus more than 4,500 in all of 2025.
The majority of the images depicted girls, and most of the children shown were aged seven to 13.
Report Remove received 420 reports from children about faked or manipulated explicit images, already above the 2025 total of 397.
The IWF is calling for binding legislation to compel companies to build safer models.
The NCA and IWF advise parents to keep children's pictures off public social media.

The problem

By the first half of 2026, the IWF had assessed 6,310 AI images meeting the legal definition of child sexual abuse, about 40% above the 2025 total, with most depicting girls aged seven to 13.

The rundown

The IWF says AI-made abuse material has been rising for several years, with a particularly large surge in videos, although this latest release counts only still images. The organisation monitors abuse material globally and is based in the UK.

On policy, the IWF's head of policy, Hannah Swirsky, backed parliamentarians' calls for binding AI legislation and said tech companies must build tools that cannot be abused this way. The UK AI minister, Kanishka Narayan, said nothing is off the table but that any proposal must make British people safer, while the government has not signalled an imminent AI-focused bill.

UK law already makes AI-generated abuse material illegal, and it is illegal to adapt or distribute models to create it. Developing a model designed to produce hyper-realistic abuse material carries up to five years in prison. A government spokesperson said such imagery often contains the likeness of real children.

Beyond the image counts, Report Remove, which blocks intimate images from appearing online, has received reports from children about images of themselves they believed were faked. The NCA and IWF suggest making accounts private or using close-friends groups when sharing children's pictures.