Children in UK report online sextortion attempts in record numbers

Children are reporting online sextortion attempts in record numbers in the UK, as campaigners urge tech companies to do more to stamp out the crime.The Report Remove service, which allows children to flag intimate images or videos of themselves that have appeared, or could appear, online, said it received 394 reports from under-18s last year of blackmail attempts after sending sexual images to predators. The figure is 34% higher than in 2024.Sextortion is the term for when a person is manipulated into sending an explicit selfie or video to a predator, who then threatens to publish it online unless the victim sends money or further intimate images. Boys aged 14 to 17 accounted for 98% of the blackmail victims.Sextortion has been linked to the suicides of several British teenagers who have killed themselves after receiving extortion threats. The parents of one victim, 16-year-old Murray Dowey, from Dunblane, are suing Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta for allegedly failing to put in place sufficient safeguards to protect their son.The Molly Rose Foundation (MRF), an internet safety charity, said tech companies should be doing “far more” to disrupt blackmail attempts, and urged the government to demand further action from social media platforms, where initial grooming of victims often takes place. Apple and Google, owners of the iOS and Android mobile phone operating systems, should be required to introduce nudity-detection technology, MRF added.The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a watchdog that runs Report Remove alongside the NSPCC’s Childline service, also supported calls for nudity detection on devices.“It is clear to us that if companies won’t do this by themselves, the government must step in to make sure they do,” said Hannah Swirsky, the IWF’s head of policy.The NSPCC said the figures showed that anti-nudity detection should be made mandatory on devices.Murray Dowey’s mother, Ros, said the latest data was “horrifying and disappointing”. She said: “What will it take for social media companies to take responsibility, when they are fully aware that crimes are taking place on their platforms but still not putting in place safety measures?”Murray’s father, Mark, added that until their own case against Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook, reached court they would keep the issue in the spotlight.“It does feel like the tide of public perception is turning against social media platforms, but these companies are still facilitating harm, despite claiming to put in place more safety measures. If they worked, the figures should be going down.”Ros and Mark Dowey, whose 16-year-old son, Murray, took his own life after being duped by criminals online. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The GuardianSextortion predators use several platforms as well as measures used by social media companies, including sharing tipoffs about threats to child safety operated by the Tech Coalition group.If a child contacts Report Remove and uploads an intimate image of themselves to the service, it then turns those images into a “hash”, or digital fingerprint, which is shared with leading tech platforms, which can take the image down or prevent it from being uploaded. Report Remove does not share the image itself with any tech companies.Kerry Smith, IWF’s chief executive, said the true impact of the latest sextortion numbers on children’s lives was “difficult to fathom”, because other unknown victims might not be aware of the Report Remove service and had not come forward.“Criminals are casting their nets wide and are able to corner young people with the most violent and terrifying threats,” she said. “They employ emotional manipulation and use intimidating, aggressive language and threats that escalate rapidly after nudes are taken.”Shaun Friel, the director of Childline, said one positive from the numbers was that children had become aware of the platform and were more willing to use it. Report Remove gave young people a way to “take back control”, he said.The Report Remove data for 2025 showed the number of under-18s seeking help from the service had risen by 66% in a year, with 1,175 out of 1,894 reports referring to imagery that was so explicit it was classified as child sexual abuse material. The number of videos reported to the service also increased, rising by 27% to 509.A Google spokesperson said the company was “committed” to preventing sextortion and had invested in “industry-leading” protections. “Tackling this issue requires continuous work, and our approach is constantly evolving, informed by victim-survivors and experts,” they said.Apple declined to comment. The company operates a “communication safety” system that warns under-18s if they receive or attempt to send images of videos that might contain nudity. Google Messages, the default messaging app on Google systems, has an option to turn on “sensitive content warnings”.Meta, which declined to comment, uses platforms like Lantern, which allow tech companies to share intelligence on child safety threats – a reflection of the fact that sextortion criminals use several platforms. The company has also launched a nudity protection feature that blurs nude images shared in direct messages.Meta continues to challenge the suit brought by the Doweys in the UK and other families across the US.Jess Phillips, the minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, said children had been driven to suicide by child sexual abuse and sextortion “too often”. “That reality weighs heavily on me every single day and I will do everything I can to make the online world safer for our children,” she said.Last year it was reported the UK government wanted tech companies to block explicit images and had been considering making it a requirement for devices sold in the UK.