Centre pushes AI tool to detect child sexual abuse material

India's Union Women and Child Development Minister Annapurna Devi on October 13, 2026, directed the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights to fast-track two child-safety initiatives: an AI-based tool to detect child sexual exploitation and abuse material online, developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, and social media guidelines for technology companies. The tool is designed to proactively detect CSEAM online, identifying such material independently rather than relying on complaints or reports. Meta has reportedly agreed to report child safety issues directly to the cybercrime portal managed by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, which had previously directed intermediaries to appoint nodal officers to report child sexual abuse material and use AI tools to detect and remove it.

Government-developed detection tools that scan public or platform-hosted content address only material already in circulation, leaving private direct-message abuse undetected until a complaint is filed. Real-time pattern detection embedded at the messaging layer closes that gap. Backed by Startmate and operating as a Meta Business Partner, Guardii deploys AI-driven anti-grooming, anti-sextortion and anti-CSAM detection across direct messages on Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other platforms used by children in India and globally, identifying coercion, sustained targeting and the sharing of abuse material as the conversation unfolds, reporting the threat to the parent, school or authority empowered to act, and enabling immediate escalation to I4C, NCMEC or the relevant national cybercrime coordination center when a child is in acute danger.