🔗 Share this article

Tech firms and child safety organizations will receive authority to assess whether AI tools can produce child abuse material under recently introduced UK legislation.

Significant Increase in AI-Generated Harmful Content

The declaration coincided with findings from a protection monitoring body showing that reports of AI-generated child sexual abuse material have more than doubled in the last twelve months, growing from 199 in 2024 to 426 in 2025.

New Legal Structure

Under the amendments, the authorities will permit approved AI developers and child protection organizations to inspect AI models – the underlying systems for conversational AI and image generators – and ensure they have adequate safeguards to stop them from creating images of child exploitation.

"Fundamentally about stopping exploitation before it happens," stated the minister for AI and online safety, adding: "Specialists, under rigorous conditions, can now identify the danger in AI systems early."

Addressing Legal Challenges

The changes have been introduced because it is illegal to produce and own CSAM, meaning that AI creators and other parties cannot create such content as part of a evaluation regime. Until now, officials had to delay action until AI-generated CSAM was uploaded online before dealing with it.

This law is aimed at averting that problem by helping to halt the creation of those materials at source.

Legal Structure

The changes are being added by the authorities as revisions to the criminal justice legislation, which is also implementing a prohibition on owning, producing or sharing AI models developed to create child sexual abuse material.

Real-World Impact

This recently, the minister toured the London headquarters of Childline and heard a mock-up conversation to counsellors involving a report of AI-based abuse. The call portrayed a teenager requesting help after being blackmailed using a sexualised AI-generated image of himself, constructed using AI.

"When I hear about young people facing blackmail online, it is a source of intense frustration in me and rightful concern amongst families," he said.

Concerning Data

A leading online safety foundation reported that instances of AI-generated abuse material – such as online pages that may include numerous files – had significantly increased so far this year.

Cases of category A material – the gravest form of exploitation – rose from 2,621 images or videos to 3,086.

• Female children were predominantly victimized, making up 94% of illegal AI images in 2025
• Depictions of newborns to two-year-olds rose from five in 2024 to 92 in 2025

Industry Response

The legislative amendment could "constitute a vital step to guarantee AI products are secure before they are released," commented the chief executive of the internet monitoring foundation.

"AI tools have enabled so survivors can be victimised all over again with just a simple actions, providing criminals the ability to create potentially endless amounts of advanced, lifelike exploitative content," she added. "Content which additionally exploits survivors' trauma, and makes children, particularly female children, more vulnerable both online and offline."

Counseling Session Information

The children's helpline also published information of counselling sessions where AI has been mentioned. AI-related risks discussed in the conversations comprise:

• Employing AI to rate weight, physique and appearance
• Chatbots discouraging young people from talking to trusted adults about harm
• Facing harassment online with AI-generated content
• Digital blackmail using AI-manipulated pictures

Between April and September this year, Childline delivered 367 counselling sessions where AI, chatbots and related terms were discussed, four times as many as in the equivalent timeframe last year.

Half of the references of AI in the 2025 sessions were related to mental health and wellbeing, encompassing utilizing AI assistants for assistance and AI therapy apps.