AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material Reports Surge as Virginia Criminalizes Deepfake CSAM

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported a sharp rise in reports of AI-generated child sexual abuse material, with more than 400,000 reports involving generative AI filed in 2025, as criminals increasingly use deepfake technology to fabricate explicit images from ordinary photographs of minors for sextortion purposes. In response, Virginia amended state law to make the creation or possession of AI-generated child sexual abuse material a felony when the material involves the likeness of a real child, addressing a gap in existing statutes that predated widely accessible generative AI tools. The investigation highlighted a case in which a victim received AI-generated sexual images depicting herself at age 14, created without her knowledge or participation, illustrating the technology's capacity to victimize children who never shared explicit content.

Targeted detection of AI-generated abuse material in the environments where it is distributed addresses the harm Virginia's statute criminalizes without requiring platforms to verify the age or identity of every user. A world-leading AI online-safety platform backed by Startmate, Guardii deploys specific detection logic for AI-generated and deepfake child sexual abuse material across Instagram, Discord, Roblox and other messaging channels, identifying synthetic imagery at the point it is sent in a direct message or used to coerce a child, and surfacing the threat to a parent, school counselor or law enforcement before the material is viewed or the victim is re-victimized, intercepting the distribution that legislation alone cannot prevent.