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Technology companies and child protection agencies will be granted permission to assess whether AI systems can generate child abuse material under recently introduced UK laws.

Significant Rise in AI-Generated Harmful Material

The announcement came as revelations from a safety watchdog showing that reports of AI-generated child sexual abuse material have increased dramatically in the past year, growing from 199 in 2024 to 426 in 2025.

New Legal Structure

Under the changes, the government will permit designated AI companies and child safety organizations to inspect AI systems – the underlying technology for conversational AI and visual AI tools – and ensure they have sufficient protective measures to stop them from creating images of child exploitation.

"Fundamentally about preventing abuse before it occurs," stated Kanishka Narayan, noting: "Specialists, under strict conditions, can now identify the danger in AI models promptly."

Tackling Regulatory Obstacles

The amendments have been introduced because it is against the law to produce and possess CSAM, meaning that AI creators and other parties cannot generate such images as part of a testing regime. Previously, authorities had to wait until AI-generated CSAM was uploaded online before addressing it.

This legislation is designed to preventing that issue by enabling to halt the creation of those images at source.

Legislative Framework

The changes are being added by the government as revisions to the criminal justice legislation, which is also implementing a prohibition on owning, creating or distributing AI models developed to generate child sexual abuse material.

Practical Impact

This recently, the minister toured the London headquarters of a children's helpline and heard a simulated conversation to counsellors featuring a report of AI-based abuse. The interaction portrayed a adolescent requesting help after facing extortion using a sexualised AI-generated image of himself, created using AI.

"When I hear about young people facing extortion online, it is a source of intense anger in me and rightful anger amongst families," he said.

Concerning Statistics

A leading internet monitoring organization reported that cases of AI-generated exploitation material – such as online pages that may include multiple images – had significantly increased so far this year.

Cases of category A content – the gravest form of abuse – increased from 2,621 visual files to 3,086.

• Girls were overwhelmingly victimized, accounting for 94% of illegal AI depictions in 2025
• Depictions of newborns to toddlers increased from five in 2024 to 92 in 2025

Sector Response

The law change could "represent a crucial step to ensure AI tools are safe before they are released," commented the chief executive of the online safety organization.

"AI tools have enabled so victims can be victimised repeatedly with just a simple actions, providing offenders the capability to create potentially endless amounts of sophisticated, photorealistic child sexual abuse material," she continued. "Content which additionally commodifies victims' suffering, and renders children, especially female children, more vulnerable both online and offline."

Counseling Session Data

Childline also released details of support interactions where AI has been mentioned. AI-related harms mentioned in the conversations include:

• Employing AI to rate body size, body and looks
• Chatbots discouraging children from talking to trusted adults about abuse
• Facing harassment online with AI-generated content
• Online blackmail using AI-faked images

During April and September this year, the helpline delivered 367 support sessions where AI, chatbots and related terms were mentioned, four times as many as in the same period last year.

Half of the mentions of AI in the 2025 interactions were connected with mental health and wellness, including utilizing AI assistants for support and AI therapeutic applications.