Parents should avoid publicly posting images of their children online due to the growing threat of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), according to the National Crime Agency (NCA) and the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). More than 8. 000 images and videos of realistic CSAM were identified by the IWF in 2025, a 14% increase from the previous year.

Abuse Material Rising

Tim Wright, a senior manager at the NCA, said, ‘While we and policing colleagues tackle offenders, prevention remains vital.’ The NCA and IWF have released new guidance for parents on keeping their children safe online.

The IWF said its analysts identified 13 videos of child sexual abuse in 2024, but this number had increased to 3,440 in 2025. This imagery is considered CSAM in the UK.

Government Actions and Parental Guidance

The UK government has taken steps to address AI abuse threats, including banning so-called ‘nudification’ apps and updating laws to help AI firms ensure their systems cannot be used to produce CSAM. The NCA and IWF guidance outlines three main steps for parents and guardians: reviewing privacy settings, checking social media accounts for content that may expose a child, and revisiting image consent agreements.

Kerry Smith, IWF boss, said, ‘We don’t want to say don’t share your children’s images with the people you love and trust, but we want everyone to be aware of the potential risks and make an informed decision with the full facts at their disposal.’ He added, ‘These are not hypothetical threats, they are real.’

Concerns About ‘Sharenting’

The guidance follows years of warnings from child safety experts about the risks of ‘sharenting’—a term added to the Collins English Dictionary in 2016 that describes the act of parents sharing images or videos of their child on social media. Experts have said this can expose children to risks such as identity theft and fraud. The increased availability of AI tools that can manipulate imagery has added to these concerns.

Lorna Sinclair, a child sexual abuse education manager at the NCA, said, ‘The average parent or carer does not post a picture of a child online thinking that it might be scraped to be turned into CSAM. There are lots of parents and carers who do not know that this problem exists.’