UAE parents urged to step up online safety over AI-generated images used to bully and blackmail children

The Child Safety Organisation in Sharjah issued public guidance warning that artificial intelligence is being weaponised to create manipulated images of children for bullying and blackmail, emphasising that fake images cause lasting psychological harm including humiliation, anxiety, social isolation and school avoidance. The authority reminded families that using AI to manipulate images of children to harm, defame, threaten or blackmail them carries criminal penalties under UAE law of up to two years imprisonment and fines between 250,000 and 500,000 dirhams, urging parents to review privacy settings, limit access to personal images, and report harmful content to both platforms and authorities.

When offenders deploy generative AI to synthesise explicit or humiliating imagery of a child, the attack unfolds in seconds but the intervention window is narrow. Anti-CSAM and anti-sextortion detection built into the direct-message layer can flag the coercive demand, the threat to distribute, and the escalation signature before the material spreads, routing an alert to the parent or safeguarding team and preserving evidence for the authority without requiring the child to come forward. Guardii integrates pattern recognition for AI-generated abuse material and image-based blackmail across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and other platforms, intercepting the threat at the point of contact rather than waiting for a report that many young victims, fearing shame or punishment, will never make.