The UK’s National Crime Agency has recommended that parents should not publicly display photos of their children online as part of landmark guidance to tackle the rise in AI-generated sexual abuse material.
The advice issued by the NCA and child safety watchdog the Internet Watch Foundation suggests parents and guardians make their social media accounts private or share photos of their children through a group of “close friends”.
The NCA and IWF stressed that they were not telling parents how to behave online, but said they should be aware of the problem and how to address it.
The guide also recommends auditing social media accounts for old photos that could be used by predators and reviewing photo consent agreements (for example, with schools or sports clubs) that may have been signed a few years ago before advances in artificial intelligence made image manipulation possible.
“We encourage parents and carers to take some simple steps today,” said Tim Wright, senior director at the NCA.
The guide lays out a trio of actions: check privacy settings on social media accounts; review who can see images of your children; and have open discussions about giving people and organizations permission to post images of children online.
The NCA said most parents and carers would not be aware that advances in technology had given offenders publicly available tools to create child sexual abuse material (CSAM) without needing to contact (or “groom”) victims directly.
“The average parent or carer doesn’t post a photo of a child online thinking it could be copied into CSAM,” said Lorna Sinclair, child sexual abuse education manager at the NCA. “There are many parents and caregivers who don’t know this problem exists.”
The amount of AI-generated child sexual abuse material found online increased by 14% last year, according to the IWF, which identified 8,029 AI-created realistic CSAM images and videos in 2025.
The IWF, which monitors CSAM incidents and runs a reporting hotline, has been contacted by under-18s who have been blackmailed by extortionists after their images were stripped by AI. A confidential service for removing explicit images of under-18s taken without their consent, called Report Remove, has also reported examples of image manipulation involving normal, fully clothed selfies turned into extreme pornography via AI.
In another case heard by the Childline service, a 15-year-old girl said a stranger had made a “really convincing” fake nude of her using her face and her bedroom, apparently taking the source material from her Instagram account.
The publication of the guide also follows cases where UK school websites were attacked by blackmailers who scraped photographs of children, used artificial intelligence tools to turn them into child sexual abuse material and then threatened to publish the results. A UK advisory body for tackling online harms, the Early Warning Working Group (EWWG), whose members include the NCA and the IWF, has recommended that schools remove identifiable photographs of pupils’ faces from their websites and social media accounts.
Dan Sexton, IWF’s chief technology officer, said he felt “very uncomfortable” telling parents not to publicly display photos of children, but felt there was no other option. “I don’t know what else to tell parents,” he said. “I would be very cautious. [about putting pictures of children online] because there is no protection.”
The NCA and IWF guidance states: “If you want to share photos of your child online, we suggest creating a ‘close friends’ group or limiting visibility so only selected people can see them.”
The NSPCC children’s charity also recommends that Those under 18 keep their social media accounts private..
Videos published as part of the guide show fictional scenarios of parents taking photos of their children in everyday circumstances, such as playing sports or standing at school gates, and are reminded of the risks of sharing photos online. The NCA and IWF say they want to encourage parents and children to say “no” to sharing photos online if they don’t feel comfortable about it.
Guidance for conducting a social media audit includes having users review their own social media accounts to assess whether their child’s “face, body or school uniform” can be seen, whether they are comfortable with the image remaining online, and whether it can be deleted or made private. It also recommends checking whether friends or family have uploaded images of a parent’s child, including historical posts, and discussing “clearly and calmly” what action could be taken with those posts.
The guide also recommends reviewing consent forms signed by parents at school, daycare or clubs giving permission to use their child’s image, and considering whether they want to withdraw that consent.
IWF head of marketing Tom Dyson said: “If you want to take a photograph of your children from a website or social media site, you’re perfectly fine.”
