Harm without limits: AI child sexual abuse material through the eyes of our analysts
IWF analysts' report on AI-generated child sexual abuse material assessed during 2025, centring frontline-analyst perspectives and offender-community observations. Documents a step-change in AI-generated CSAM volume and severity and the tooling (including fine-tuning) that enables realistic abuse imagery.
Publisher
Internet Watch Foundation (IWF)
Published
24 Mar 2026
Added
today
DOI
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Key Findings
- 8,029 AI-generated images and videos assessed as realistic child sexual abuse in 2025, including 3,443 AI-generated videos (up from 13 in 2024)
- 65% of the AI-generated videos were assessed as Category A (most severe); 97% of subjects were girls
- Documents AI services and tools that let offenders produce realistic abuse imagery of a specific child from a small number of source photos
Methodology Notes
NGO analyst-observation report (published 24 March 2026). Based on IWF analysts' assessments of reported content during 2025; methodology is expert triage against UK legal categories rather than peer review. iwf.org.uk bot-blocks automated fetchers; report and figures verified via the IWF research landing page and news release.
Sources
IWF AI CSAM Report 2026 (research page) (primary)
IWF news release (24 Mar 2026)
Archived snapshot (Wayback Machine) — preserved against link rot
Tags
Cite This
APA
Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) (2026). Harm without limits: AI child sexual abuse material through the eyes of our analysts. Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). https://www.iwf.org.uk/about-us/why-we-exist/our-research/how-ai-is-being-abused-to-create-child-sexual-abuse-imagery/
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