Phones used to groom children in their own homes, warns charity
Children aged between three and six are being groomed to carry out “disturbing acts” online using phones and tablets in the family home, a charity has warned.
Analysts from the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) found 2,401 “self-generated” images and videos of abuse involving children in this age range in 2023, according to the group’s annual report.
The IWF said it witnessed abuse happening in domestic locations including bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchens and dining rooms. Analysts saw toys, games, books and bedding featuring cartoon characters appearing in the background of imagery depicting some of the most “extreme kinds of sexual abuse”.
The finding comes a week after Ofcom figures that found that a quarter of five to seven-year-olds had their own smartphone and nearly a third of them (32 per cent) were using the devices unsupervised.
The IWF called on tech companies to implement the Online Safety Act before its provisions come into force next year.
Susie Hargreaves, its chief executive, said: “The opportunistic criminals who want to manipulate your children into disturbing acts of sexual abuse are not a distant threat –– they are trying to talk to them now on phones and devices you can find in any family home. If children under six are being targeted like this, we need to be having age-appropriate conversations, now, to make sure they know how to spot the dangers. A whole-society approach is needed.
“The Online Safety Act also needs to work because these online harms are getting worse. It is imperative that we all take this threat seriously and that we are all doing our bit to prevent the spread of new and previously unseen child sexual abuse imagery. We can’t afford to wait until these codes come in. The harms are happening to children now, and our response must be immediate.”
Tom Tugendhat, the security minister, said: “This deeply disturbing report shows that predators are targeting younger and younger victims. My message to parents is to speak to your children about their use of social media, because the platforms you presume [are] safe may pose a risk. It’s vital that technology companies implement stronger safeguards to prevent abuse and work with us to bring predators to justice and keep our children safe.”
The IWF, a non-profit that works to stop child sexual abuse on the internet, said it found a record amount of material last year, with 275,652 web pages containing such imagery.
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