Dec 12, 2025 08:44 AM
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1109425
EXCERPT: The rapid advancement and adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has contributed to an explosion in the creation and distribution of child sexual abuse material with NCMEC seeing a 1,325% increase in reports between 2023 and 2024. Perpetrators are also adapting to digital spaces such as end-to-end encryption platforms to groom children and evade detection. The report flags additional changes to the digital landscape that have significant potential to impact on children’s safety in the coming years, including quantum computing, decentralization and extended reality.
The report highlights the increasingly blurred distinction between children’s online and offline experiences as digital technologies are now an embedded and seamless part of most aspects of everyday life for many, permeating relationships, education, leisure and beyond. Youth access to the internet outpaces the general population by 13% and the majority of children in a study spanning 55 countries started using a digital device before the age of 10. The research lays bare the need to protect children from sexual exploitation and abuse in all spaces, whether digital or in-person, but reveals that 60% of the top global content-sharing platforms do not publish any information on how they address child sexual exploitation.
“The Global Threat Assessment 2025 shows that the child sexual exploitation and abuse online crisis continues to evolve along with rapid technological change, societal shifts and concerning behavioral trends and persists as an urgent threat to children’s safety around the world. Central to this year’s report, however, is the message that we already have the solutions; preventative approaches are key to solving this crisis. We need every sector and every country to play their part,” said Iain Drennan, Executive Director of WeProtect Global Alliance.
The report finds that the criminal activity of financial sexual extortion has grown to be a major threat, with NCMEC receiving approximately 100 reports of financial sexual extortion every day in 2024.
The research also identifies a complex web of harms that increasingly overlap and intersect with the issue of child sexual exploitation and abuse. These include the issues of self-harm, terrorist and violent extremist content and a growing concern around children who display harmful sexual behaviors and peer-to-peer abuse.
“The 2025 Global Threat Assessment provides a powerful action-oriented framework for tackling the complex global threat of technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation and abuse,” said Cassie Landers, EdD, MPH, assistant professor of Population and Family Health at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health and director of the CPC Learning Network.
‘Fast-emerging technology-driven exposures threaten and thwart children’s growth development across all domains. These threats appear faster than our capacity to shape, define and implement safeguards. But as noted in the report, there is an emerging global movement. Children’s voices are no longer silent. Rather, they have been uplifted to a vital role helping us to better understand risk factors, comprehend behavioral and physical impact, and identify realistic sustainable solutions. There is no time to wait. Public Health epidemiologists and social scientists have a critical role in filling existing data gaps and analyzing what works and why.” (MORE - missing details, no ads)
EXCERPT: The rapid advancement and adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has contributed to an explosion in the creation and distribution of child sexual abuse material with NCMEC seeing a 1,325% increase in reports between 2023 and 2024. Perpetrators are also adapting to digital spaces such as end-to-end encryption platforms to groom children and evade detection. The report flags additional changes to the digital landscape that have significant potential to impact on children’s safety in the coming years, including quantum computing, decentralization and extended reality.
The report highlights the increasingly blurred distinction between children’s online and offline experiences as digital technologies are now an embedded and seamless part of most aspects of everyday life for many, permeating relationships, education, leisure and beyond. Youth access to the internet outpaces the general population by 13% and the majority of children in a study spanning 55 countries started using a digital device before the age of 10. The research lays bare the need to protect children from sexual exploitation and abuse in all spaces, whether digital or in-person, but reveals that 60% of the top global content-sharing platforms do not publish any information on how they address child sexual exploitation.
“The Global Threat Assessment 2025 shows that the child sexual exploitation and abuse online crisis continues to evolve along with rapid technological change, societal shifts and concerning behavioral trends and persists as an urgent threat to children’s safety around the world. Central to this year’s report, however, is the message that we already have the solutions; preventative approaches are key to solving this crisis. We need every sector and every country to play their part,” said Iain Drennan, Executive Director of WeProtect Global Alliance.
The report finds that the criminal activity of financial sexual extortion has grown to be a major threat, with NCMEC receiving approximately 100 reports of financial sexual extortion every day in 2024.
The research also identifies a complex web of harms that increasingly overlap and intersect with the issue of child sexual exploitation and abuse. These include the issues of self-harm, terrorist and violent extremist content and a growing concern around children who display harmful sexual behaviors and peer-to-peer abuse.
“The 2025 Global Threat Assessment provides a powerful action-oriented framework for tackling the complex global threat of technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation and abuse,” said Cassie Landers, EdD, MPH, assistant professor of Population and Family Health at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health and director of the CPC Learning Network.
‘Fast-emerging technology-driven exposures threaten and thwart children’s growth development across all domains. These threats appear faster than our capacity to shape, define and implement safeguards. But as noted in the report, there is an emerging global movement. Children’s voices are no longer silent. Rather, they have been uplifted to a vital role helping us to better understand risk factors, comprehend behavioral and physical impact, and identify realistic sustainable solutions. There is no time to wait. Public Health epidemiologists and social scientists have a critical role in filling existing data gaps and analyzing what works and why.” (MORE - missing details, no ads)