Europol reports 38 percent increase in online child sexual abuse reports in 2024

Europol's 2024 Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment reports a 38 percent increase in referrals of online child sexual abuse material compared to the previous assessment period, with the agency noting that offenders are increasingly using mainstream social media platforms and encrypted messaging services to distribute CSAM and to contact and groom children. The report highlights the growing use of artificial intelligence to generate synthetic abuse imagery and the challenge this poses for detection and victim identification.

A 38 percent rise in reported abuse material signals both increased offending and a detection gap: much of the contact, solicitation and image exchange that precedes a formal report takes place in private messaging channels where traditional content moderation has limited reach. Guardii's CSAM-detection module, which includes recognition of AI-generated and deepfake abuse imagery, operates in real time within direct-message environments on platforms including Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and Roblox, identifying sharing of illegal material and the grooming and sextortion conversations that typically accompany it, and surfacing these high-risk interactions to the appropriate authority before they result in further distribution or escalation to contact abuse.