Report analysis
IWF Internet Content Analysts receive reports from children around the world who tell us they are being sexually extorted. These reports can be from Report Remove where the child has explicitly told us they have been subject to sexually coerced extortion or they can be from URLs that show evidence of it taking place, for example in a chat function that can be seen on the URL alongside the imagery.
Sexually coerced extortion, often referred to as ‘sextortion', is a type of blackmail where someone tries to use intimate, naked or sexual images or videos of a person to blackmail or extort them, often for either more images or for money. Sometimes, these images or videos are taken without the knowledge of the person pictured. The IWF can only assist with content removal in instances of sexual extortion where the victim is a child. In 2024, we saw 175 actionable reports where this was a feature, 152 of these were reported to us directly from the public and the rest were as result of our proactive work.
Our experience is that Category C imagery is most often used to sexually extort a child. These images depict nude or partially nude sexual posing, and images that focus on a child’s genitals or breasts. They are usually 'self-generated' in nature.
The majority (138) of the reports received were from boys, which continues the trend seen last year. However, the number of reports of sexual extortion involving girls has increased this year, where we saw 37 reports in comparison to only 10 reports in 2023.
151 of these reports came directly via the IWF and Childline Report Remove tool where we saw:
The dominant age group for these reports remains 16-to-17-year-olds, as it was in 2023.
Due to the increasing numbers of sexual extortion reports assessed by our analysts, we have created a sexual extortion resource on our website to help children, young people and parents navigate this terrible crime.