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 and use.
- 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 by the day.
Report Remove, an anonymous flagging service run 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 so-called nudification tools, software that takes an ordinary photo of a real person and generates a fake version showing them without clothes.
The service lets children report intimate images without having to identify themselves to the platform hosting the content. Once reported, the images are blocked from appearing online.
What exactly is happening to these children?
Someone takes a real photo of a child, often from a social media profile, and runs it through an AI tool to produce a fake explicit version. The child never consented. The image looks convincing. And it spreads.
This type of content is sometimes called a deepfake, a fake photo or video generated by AI that looks like the real person. Creating or sharing such images of anyone under 18 is a criminal offence in the UK, but that has not stopped the volume from rising.
The Guardian first reported the findings, citing the watchdog's warning that AI is making this abuse easier to carry out than ever before.
What should parents and young people do?
If a child finds an explicit fake image of themselves online, they can report it to Report Remove without giving their name. The service contacts the hosting platform and works to get the content taken down.
Parents can help by having an honest conversation about what children share publicly on social media. A photo taken at a school sports day or a birthday party can become source material in seconds. Tighter privacy settings on social profiles reduce the pool of images an abuser can exploit.
Schools and safeguarding teams should also know that this is no longer rare. The numbers are rising fast, and the tools producing these images are not hard to find.
For anyone affected, the Childline helpline (0800 1111) offers confidential support around image-based abuse.
