Overview
- The Internet Watch Foundation, which published its annual report Thursday, found 15,031 commercial sites selling child sexual abuse images in 2025, up from 7,028 in 2024.
- The watchdog digitally marked 317,101 illegal images in 2025 to help platforms stop their spread.
- About 16% of the sites were disguised as harmless or inactive pages that hid routes into abusive content, with payments taken by crypto, money transfer services, or credit cards.
- Reports of sextortion rose to 397 cases, with most flagged through the Report Remove helpline and boys aged 14 to 17 making up 98% of victims.
- The IWF urged banks to detect and remove payment links while encrypted platforms adopt safety tools, and Jess Phillips said the Crime and Policing Bill will bring hefty prison terms for operators and moderators.