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Technology companies and child safety organizations will be granted authority to evaluate whether AI tools can generate child exploitation images under recently introduced British laws.

Significant Rise in AI-Generated Illegal Content

The announcement coincided with findings from a safety monitoring body showing that cases of AI-generated CSAM have more than doubled in the last twelve months, rising from 199 in 2024 to 426 in 2025.

New Regulatory Structure

Under the amendments, the government will permit designated AI companies and child protection organizations to examine AI models – the foundational systems for chatbots and image generators – and verify they have sufficient safeguards to prevent them from creating images of child exploitation.

"Ultimately about stopping exploitation before it occurs," declared Kanishka Narayan, noting: "Specialists, under strict protocols, can now detect the risk in AI systems promptly."

Addressing Regulatory Challenges

The changes have been introduced because it is illegal to produce and own CSAM, meaning that AI developers and other parties cannot generate such images as part of a evaluation regime. Previously, authorities had to wait until AI-generated CSAM was uploaded online before addressing it.

This legislation is designed to averting that issue by helping to stop the creation of those images at source.

Legal Framework

The amendments are being added by the authorities as modifications to the crime and policing bill, which is also establishing a ban on owning, creating or distributing AI systems developed to create exploitative content.

Practical Impact

This recently, the official toured the London headquarters of a children's helpline and heard a mock-up conversation to counsellors featuring a account of AI-based exploitation. The interaction portrayed a adolescent seeking help after being blackmailed using a sexualised AI-generated image of themselves, created using AI.

"When I hear about young people experiencing extortion online, it is a source of extreme frustration in me and justified anger amongst families," he stated.

Alarming Statistics

A prominent online safety foundation stated that cases of AI-generated abuse content – such as webpages that may include numerous images – had significantly increased so far this year.

Cases of category A material – the gravest form of abuse – rose from 2,621 images or videos to 3,086.

• Female children were overwhelmingly targeted, accounting for 94% of prohibited AI depictions in 2025
• Depictions of newborns to two-year-olds increased from five in 2024 to 92 in 2025

Sector Reaction

The legislative amendment could "represent a vital step to guarantee AI products are safe before they are released," stated the chief executive of the internet monitoring foundation.

"AI tools have enabled so survivors can be victimised all over again with just a few clicks, giving offenders the capability to make potentially endless amounts of advanced, photorealistic child sexual abuse material," she continued. "Material which additionally exploits survivors' trauma, and renders children, especially female children, less safe both online and offline."

Counseling Interaction Data

The children's helpline also released information of support interactions where AI has been referenced. AI-related harms discussed in the sessions comprise:

• Using AI to rate weight, body and appearance
• Chatbots dissuading children from talking to safe adults about abuse
• Being bullied online with AI-generated content
• Online blackmail using AI-manipulated pictures

Between April and September this year, Childline conducted 367 support sessions where AI, conversational AI and associated topics were mentioned, significantly more as many as in the same period last year.

Fifty percent of the references of AI in the 2025 interactions were related to mental health and wellbeing, including using AI assistants for support and AI therapeutic applications.