70 million people warned about searches for child abuse material

More than 70 million warnings have been issued to people searching for child sexual abused material (CSAM) online over the past two years. The Lucy Faithfull Foundation has worked with online platforms to send out the alerts.

Figures published by the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, a UK child sexual abuse charity, show that warnings triggered for searches about child sexual abuse material averaged more than 95,000 each day.

The warnings were triggered when someone used search terms that indicated CSAM, or if they clicked a link that had previously been reported as containing sexual images of children. The Lucy Faithfull Foundation developed Project Impact to implement these warnings. They partnered with companies such as Google, Meta, OpenAI, and TikTok to send messages, which informed the user that viewing CSAM was a crime, causes harm, and that there was help available to stop.

Of the 70 million warnings triggers, 700,000 people clicked to receive help to change their behaviour. An average of 28,000 users each month were directed to the Stop It Now website and engaged with their resources. Users from 131 countries were among those who triggers the warning messages.

One user who sought support after getting the warning message said: “After I got the warning, I had a look around on Stop It Now … I found the modules on addiction and pornography very helpful. About two months ago I gave up adult sites. I want to keep my mind occupied and more productive.”

Project Impact currently has 22 active warnings and are urging more tech companies to partner with them. Griffin Hunt, Product Manager for Google Search, said: “Since making these changes, we have observed greater engagement with the therapeutic help services we feature – like Stop It Now – and a reduction in the rate at which users issue follow-on CSAM-seeking queries in Search.”

Deborah Denis, chief executive at Lucy Faithfull Foundation, said that the figures make “one thing clear - the potential to scale this approach is enormous.” She went on: "By placing more warnings across more online spaces, we can disrupt harmful behaviour at the moment it's happening and prevent countless children from being harmed.”