The Internet has tripled sexual violence against child -containing materials / day

Last year, the Inhope Association’s Message Lines, which operate in 51 countries in the world, including in Latvia – Drossinternets.lv, received reports of almost 2.5 million potentially illegal online materials – images, video, correspondence – sexual violence against children. Analyzing the content, it was found that most, 64%, or 1.6 million materials, contained sexual violence against children’s portrayal. This number has increased more than 3 times since 2023 – at that time there were just over 0.5 million such material. Most – 91 % of victims – are between 3 and 13 years old, and 98 % of the material analyzed are girls.

In Latvia, nearly 13,000 reports were received in the Drossinternets.lv report line. 90 % of the reports received were about pedophilia and child sexual abuse materials on the Internet. The Drossinternets.lv report in processing with the State Police, Electronic Communications Merchants and members of the International Inhope Association, so this type of illegal material is usually extinguished within three days of public access.

Pedophiles become more cunning and use artificial intelligence

Last year, significant changes were observed in the distribution of child sexual exploitation materials. First of all, offenders are increasingly using artificial intelligence and depth, or « Deepfake » technology to create realistic illegal content, making it difficult to identify. Similarly, such content is increasingly distributed through encrypted, decentralized and so-called « Peer-to-Peer » networks, as well as « dark internet » forums that make it difficult to track sexual exploitation of sexual exploitation. Secondly, the number of reports on individual elements of content, such as individual video shots or data fragments, increasing the total amount of messages, but at the same time complicates the analysis processes. Thirdly, there was increased cooperation between criminal groups in different countries using global platforms, cryptocurrency and anonymization tools to coordinate actions and make investigation more difficult.

Unfortunately, the mains of the received reports are still on the materials created by the children, which are often distributed through popular platforms and encrypted messaging apps such as « Signal », « WhatsApp » or uncontrolled video streaming platforms. This trend is proof of offenders’ skills to manipulate children and build friendly relationships with the child to engage in their sexual activities in front of the camera. Sexual activity manifests itself as conversations on sexual topics, encouraging sexual activity or sexual relationships, encouraging or coercing to make nude photos or photos depicting intimate parts of the body, etc. tml.

There is also a tendency for pedophiles to use children’s photographs of parents in social media to process them through artificial intelligence tools and to create pornographic content of the child’s face.

What to do?

It should be recalled: every Internet user who faces violations on the Internet, in particular sexual violence against child -containing materials, is called upon to report it immediately. This is most convenient to do this on Drossinternets.lv on the « Report » section. The message may be anonymous. All reports are processed in cooperation with the State Police. If necessary, information shall be transmitted to other Member States of the Inhope Association for operational deletion of these materials from public circulation. In some cases, the message line operator shall report illegal content to an electronic communications merchant to immediately delete illegal content from public inspection.

Inhope is an international organization aimed at limiting the spread of child sexual exploitation in the Internet environment. It combines 55 message lines in 51 countries. More information is available on the Inhope website. Latvia is represented by the Latvian Internet Association Safer Internet Center (drossinternets.lv) in the Inhope Association.