Recently published Home Office data revealed police forces across England and Wales recorded 38,685 child sexual abuse image offences last year (2023/24), an average of more than 100 every day.
A separate Freedom of Information request the NSPCC submitted showed that of the 7,338 offences last year where law enforcement recorded the platform used by perpetrators:
- Exactly half (50%) took place on Snapchat.
- A quarter took place on Meta products (11% on Instagram, 7% on Facebook and 6% on WhatsApp).
- In addition, it revealed that child sexual abuse offences have reached record levels in Northern Ireland (859 crimes) and remain consistently high in Scotland (748 crimes).
Along with the charities Marie Collins Foundation, Lucy Faithfull Foundation, Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse, and Barnardo’s, we sent a joint letter to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Secretary of State for Science, Innovation, and Technology Peter Kyle.
The letter expresses collective concern regarding Ofcom’s final Illegal Harms Code of Practice published in December 2024. The charities argue that, as it stands, children will not be protected from the worst forms of abuse on private messaging services under Ofcom’s plans, despite this being a core aim of the Online Safety Act.
Ofcom has stated that user-to-user services are only required to remove illegal content where it is ‘technically feasible’. This exception creates an unacceptable loophole, allowing some services to avoid delivering the most basic protections for children.
Data from police forces on the number of recorded offences where the platform was known indicates private messaging sites are involved in more crimes than any other type of platform. Perpetrators exploit the secrecy offered by these spaces to harm children and go undetected.
NSPCC want the UK Government to push Ofcom to review and strengthen their most recent codes of practice on tackling this threat to children’s safety online.
They are also calling for private messaging services, including those using end-to-end encryption, to make sure there are robust safeguards in place to ensure their platforms do not act as a ‘safe haven’ for perpetrators of child sexual abuse. End-to-end encryption is a secure communication system where only communicating users can participate. This means that service providers can be blinded to child sexual abuse material being shared through their platform. Marcus Johnstone of PCD Solicitors, who specialises in criminal defence for sexual offences, has the following comment:
“The data in the NSPCC’s latest report is deeply concerning. Sadly, I can concur that child sexual abuse image crime is a problem I have seen grow exponentially in recent years.
At my firm, around 60 per-cent of enquiries relate to digital crimes: sexual communication with a child, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, and possession of indecent images. These allegations are incredibly serious, but also often difficult to investigate, owing to a shortage of trained specialist officers to analyse and interpret complex and technical data.
Messaging platforms like Snapchat and Kik are perfect for the predator, with many layers of encryption, extensive privacy features, and millions of young users. Whilst these platforms have made strides in detection software, in my view what is reported is just the tip of the iceberg.
Equally, it is my experience that some reported cases are more nuanced than they first seem: frequently, I represent children and teenagers probed by the police after receiving sexual images from people their own age, or after sending intimate images of themselves. These cases are very complex, continue to rise, and occur at a grey area of the law.
The government often talks about keeping the streets safe, and they are right to do so. But when so many serious crimes are committed online, it is the digital world that increasingly requires more policing: by authorities, parents, and the tech giants.”
