Earlier this year The National Crime Agency issued an alert to hundreds of thousands of teachers regarding so called ‘Sextortion’ and the considerable increase in cases involving children in the UK.
So what is Sextortion?
Financially motivated sexual extortion, sextortion for short, is “a type of online blackmail where criminals threaten to share pictures, videos, or information about you. They may try to take money from you or forcing you to do something else you don’t want to do” (Metropolitan Police 2024). It has also been reported that although everyone can be a victim of Sextortion, people under the age of 30 are particularly at risk, with children aged between 15- 17 being the cohort most at risk.
Sextortion can be committed by individuals but is most commonly part of an organised crime group who tend to target males more than females. 9 in 10 cases of sextortion in the UK dealt with by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) in 2023 involved male victims.
The consequences of Sextortion can be devastating, as shown in the harrowing case of Murray Dowey (16) who tragically died by suicide in 2023. Murray had not shown any indication that anything was wrong or that he was in trouble, but two weeks after he passed away police were able to confirm, by accessing his social media, that Murray was a victim of Sextortion. Murray had been tricked by someone he believed to be a female of similar age into sending an intimate image of himself. However, it turned out to be a scam and he was then blackmailed. Murray’s parents continue to campaign for social media sites to do more to protect victims.
The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Sextortion
In 2019 we saw the introduction of ‘declothing’ apps that allow users to upload a picture of someone and the app would then use AI to create a nude image. At the beginning the images were somewhat unsophisticated but since the rise of AI the images can now look hyper-realistic. These kinds of apps have seen a sharp rise in users and people paying to use the feature.
Quite often sextortion is motivated by financial gain rather than sexual gratification and means perpetrators move quickly and want to blackmail the victim as soon as possible, unlike other crimes where there is often a prolonged period of grooming.
Most worryingly is that perpetrators of sextortion are now also using AI to generate false images of young people and are using those to blackmail. The images created look incredibly realistic and although young people are aware they are faked images this doesn’t lessen the fear or impact of being threatened with them.
Children who have been victims of Sextortion have reported the following:
- Children were added on social media sites by someone they don’t know but who appears to be someone of a similar age
- Conversations quickly turned sexual and explicit often with the perpetrator sharing explicit images
- Children were manipulated into sharing a nude image of themselves
- Children were either then blackmailed or told that their accounts had been hacked and the perpetrators had access to the children’s pictures and accounts – this was sometimes true and but often false and designed to instil fear in the young person.
The Internet Watch Foundation reported a record 275,655 websites were found to contain child sexual abuse in 2023 – an 8% rise from the previous year. Of those, 254,070, or 92%, contained “self-generated” images or videos, with children under the age of 10 featuring on 107,615 of the sites, and youngsters aged between three and six found on 2,500 of them.
When putting this into the context of sextortion the number of children who could be at risk of being threatened with their own images is staggering and most worryingly, on the rise.
What can we do to help young people?
- The National Crime agency are asking professionals to raise awareness where possible, especially in schools.
- Remind the young person that they are not at fault and that support is available.
- Talking to children about social media sites, even those that don’t appear to be harmful.
- Making sure the school’s online filtering and monitoring systems are working and effective.
- Ensure children are aware they can talk to a trusted adult, whether in school or at home, about what is happening and that there is no judgement.
- Make young people aware of The Report Remove tool that Childline and the IWF have developed. This tool can support children to report images, anonymously if needed, so they can be removed from the internet and stop the images going viral.
- Report all incidents of sextortion to the police and follow your safeguarding procedures.
There is support available to schools, young people and parents and its important to access this if you or someone you know has been, or could potentially be, a victim of Sextortion.
For further support:
National Crime Agency Alert 2024
Online safety newsletter (Summer 2024)
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