The UK's Report Remove service received 420 reports of explicit deepfakes from children in the first half of 2026, surpassing the total for all of 2025. The Internet Watch Foundation warned that most cases crossed the threshold for illegal child sexual abuse material, with some linked to sextortion and school blackmail. In response, safety experts are demanding tech companies build stronger safeguards, while schools and governments implement updated cyberbullying policies and legal measures like the U.S. Take It Down Act.
UK deepfake reports surge
- ▪The UK-based Report Remove service received 420 reports from children in the first six months of 2026 regarding explicit images they believed were digitally faked or manipulated
- ▪The 420 reports of manipulated explicit images received by Report Remove in the first half of 2026 exceeded the service's total of 397 reports for the entire year of 2025
AI-generated child abuse material
- ▪Cybercriminals have targeted UK schools by scraping pictures of pupils, using artificial intelligence to convert them into child sexual abuse material, and threatening to publish the imagery to blackmail the schools
- ▪Dan Sexton of the Internet Watch Foundation stated that some children contacting Report Remove had been targeted for sextortion, where blackmailers threaten to publish manipulated images unless they receive payment
- ▪The Internet Watch Foundation stated that the majority of manipulated-image reports received by Report Remove in 2025 and 2026 were severe enough to cross the threshold for child sexual abuse material
School cyberbullying policies
- ▪Illinois passed legislation directing all schools in the state to update their cyberbullying policies to address cases involving artificial intelligence-generated deepfakes
- ▪Willowbrook High School in Illinois updated its cyberbullying policy to define deepfakes and clarify that creating and sharing nonconsensual images and videos is a criminal offense
Report Remove service operations
- ▪The Report Remove service, operated by the Internet Watch Foundation and the NSPCC, allows children to anonymously report intimate images to prevent them from appearing or spreading online
- ▪Report Remove converts flagged intimate images into a digital fingerprint, or hash, which is shared with major technology platforms to enable takedowns and prevent uploads
- ▪Report Remove added a specific check box to its online submission form allowing under-18s to flag submitted material specifically as deepfaked
Prevention strategies lacking
- ▪Kristin Woelfel of the Center for Democracy and Technology argued that efforts to punish deepfake perpetrators have outweighed initiatives to prevent deepfakes and address the concerns of victims
- ▪NSPCC online safety experts stated that technology companies must embed stronger safety protections in their artificial intelligence products to prevent the creation of explicit material
Victim support resources
- ▪The Take It Down Act, signed into law in the United States in May 2025, compels social media companies to remove nonconsensual intimate imagery within 48 hours of a verified request
- ▪Buffalo Grove High School principal Jeff Wardle established a protocol designating an associate principal as a point person to quickly act on reports of circulating deepfakes
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