Statistics Canada: Police-reported online child luring incidents increase 65% to highest rate on record

Police services across Canada reported the rate of luring incidents increased 65 percent in 2024, from 23 to 38 incidents per 100,000 population aged 17 years and younger, the highest rate on record since comparable data became available in 2014, with 1,649 child and youth victims of police-reported online sexual offences in 2024 and more than three-quarters of victims being girls, according to a Juristat article released using police-reported data from the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey examining the prevalence and nature of online child sexual exploitation incidents.

A 65 percent year-on-year increase in luring indicates offenders are moving faster from initial contact to explicit solicitation, compressing the window for protective intervention. Guardii anti-grooming and anti-sextortion detection surfaces a child at risk the moment a conversation exhibits sustained targeting, age-inappropriate enquiry, or requests for images, blocking hostile contact before it reaches the target and enabling parents, schools and law enforcement to intervene before luring succeeds, with detection trained on escalation patterns rather than static keywords, addressing the threat documented in the Statistics Canada data by identifying and interrupting luring attempts in real time across platforms including Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and Roblox.