UK Children Are Reporting Explicit Deepfakes of Themselves at Record Rates
A service that helps young people remove intimate images from the internet says digitally faked content, including AI-generated nudity, is rising sharply. Experts warn the tools making it possible are only getting easier to find.
Key points
- The Report Remove service, which helps people take intimate images offline, has recorded a rapid rise in deepfake and AI-manipulated imagery involving children in the UK.
- AI nudification tools, software that strips clothing from photos to create fake explicit images, are becoming easier to access.
- A safety watchdog says artificial intelligence is directly lowering the barrier to producing this kind of content.
- Report Remove is an anonymous flagging service, meaning children can report images without revealing their identity to the platform.
A growing number of children in the UK are discovering explicit fake images of themselves circulating online, and the tools making those images are getting simpler to use.
Report Remove, run jointly by the Internet Watch Foundation and the charity Childline, has seen a sharp increase in cases involving digitally manipulated imagery. That includes photos altered with AI and nudification tools: software that takes an ordinary photo of a real person and produces a fake version without clothes. The service lets children flag intimate images anonymously, so they don't have to identify themselves to the platform hosting the content.
We covered the xAI deepfake lawsuit on 29 July 2026, when Grok had produced roughly 3 million sexualised images in 11 days, including around 23,000 of children. The UK figures show the same underlying technology is reaching children much closer to home.
What exactly is happening to these children?
Someone lifts a real photo from a child's social media profile, runs it through an AI tool, and gets a convincing fake explicit image back. It didn't require specialist knowledge. The child didn't consent, and once the image spreads, it's very hard to recall.
This content is sometimes called a deepfake, meaning AI-generated imagery that depicts a real person doing or wearing something they never did. The Guardian first reported these findings, citing the watchdog's warning that AI has made this abuse easier to carry out than before.
What should parents and young people do?
Children who find an explicit fake image of themselves online can report it to Report Remove without giving their name. The service contacts the hosting platform and works to have the content blocked.
Parents should know that a photo from a school sports day or a birthday party can become source material in seconds. Tighter privacy settings reduce the images an abuser can exploit. Schools and safeguarding teams should treat this as routine, not exceptional: the numbers are climbing, and the tools aren't hard to find.
Watch whether platforms respond faster once the UK's Online Safety Act powers are fully active. Speed of takedown, not just the reporting mechanism, is where real protection either happens or doesn't.
