The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has found in its investigation URLs containing AI-generated images of child sexual abuse being shared online. The IWF called on the Prime Minister of the UK to prioritise the threat posed by AI-generated pictures of child sexual abuse.

The IWF undertook a five-week study to better understand the threats that the emerging technology of AI could pose. In May, for the first time, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) began to record instances of AI-generated child sexual abuse imagery being reported to the IWF hotline.

Between 24 May and 30 June, the IWF investigated 29 reports of URLs that appeared to contain AI-generated child sexual abuse images. These included reports by the public, out of which seven URLs were confirmed to contain AI-generated child sexual abuse images. These URLs may contain several images, which may be exclusively generated by AI or a mixture of both AI-generated and real images. The URLs taken down by the IWF included sites with children between 3 and 6 years old.

IWF warns that this type of offense can contribute to normalizing and perpetuating child sexual abuse while also posing a threat in identifying situations where real children might be in danger of harm.