Internet Watch Foundation: AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Images Surge

The Internet Watch Foundation reported a significant increase in AI-generated child sexual abuse material in 2024, with analysts confirming that synthetic images and deepfakes now constitute a measurable proportion of CSAM reports assessed by the organisation. The report highlights offender use of generative artificial intelligence tools to create photorealistic imagery and to alter non-sexual images of real children into explicit material, complicating detection and expanding the volume of abusive content in circulation without requiring direct contact with a victim.

Synthetic CSAM shares distribution channels with contact-offence material and serves identical purposes in grooming and blackmail. The Guardii CSAM-detection module is trained on both photographed and AI-generated abuse imagery, applying computer-vision classifiers that recognise the visual markers of child exploitation regardless of provenance, and operates within private messaging environments on Instagram, Discord and other platforms where offenders share libraries, normalise abuse and identify prospective targets, enabling takedown and referral before the material is weaponised in a live sextortion or grooming conversation.