More than 70 million attempts to access child sexual abuse imagery intercepted via warning messages, charity reveals

Deborah Denis, chief executive at Lucy Faithfull Foundation says: “Tens of millions of people have been reached through just 22 targeted interventions on tech platforms. That makes one thing clear – the potential to scale this approach is enormous. 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. The need has never been more urgent, particularly as new AI technologies accelerate the spread of online child sexual abuse.

“Through our Stop It Now services, we hear every day from people who are concerned about the direction of their online behaviour, but who struggle to change without support. Meanwhile, children are harmed every day. We must not leave children to protect themselves; it is the responsibility of adults, and especially tech companies, to keep them safe.

“We’ve proved it’s possible for tech companies to intervene effectively, preventing people from seeking illegal and abusive images of children and diverting them towards help to change. These warnings don’t simply block harmful content; they offer a clear pathway to support and behaviour change. Now we are calling on tech companies to work with us to scale what works and prevent harm before it happens.”

Someone who knows the value of support to change behaviour is Ben,⁵ who accessed the Stop It Now self-help modules after his searches on a pornography website triggered a warning message. Ben says: “After I got the warning on an adult site I was browsing, I had a look around the Stop It Now modules.

Almudena Lara, Ofcom’s Child Protection Policy Director, says: “These findings highlight the important role that warning messages play in tackling child sexual abuse online, by encouraging offenders to change their behaviour. This is a core safety measure in our codes of practice, which was developed with the help of evidence submitted by the Lucy Faithfull Foundation.

“It’s encouraging to see many platforms deploying deterrence messaging as the result of effective partnerships between child protection experts and tech firms, and we’re pleased that some services appear to be going beyond what we expect.

“Research like this is crucial to us better understanding how effective this measure can be. However, it also underlines the scale of the problem that needs to be addressed. Change is happening, but there’s more to do, and we’ll continue to collaborate with a range of organisations to create a safer life online and hold platforms to account.”

Griffin Hunt, Product Manager for Google Search says: “Early in 2025, we transformed our CSAM deterrence messaging in Google Search to incorporate a public health perspective and to encourage help-seeking by people at risk of perpetrating child sexual exploitation and abuse. 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.”

André Meister, Chief Technology Officer at Mega says: “There’s a common misconception that encrypted services are limited in how they can address harmful activity. In practice, we can and do take meaningful action, and one of several measures we’ve implemented has been in partnership with Lucy Faithfull Foundation’s Project Intercept.

“We recognised that it isn’t enough to reactively or even proactively remove material, we also needed to intervene earlier in the path towards harmful behaviour, before patterns become entrenched. Through our work with Project Intercept we are delivering well-timed deterrence messaging and self-help resourcing that interrupts harmful behaviour right at the point of intent, and we are pleased with the level of engagement the intervention has been driving. It is a more complete, science-backed approach, and we are grateful for the partnership in our continued fight against CSAM.”

Paul Fletcher, CEO of Nominet says: “Project Intercept reflects the best of what can be achieved when organisations come together to protect children. Together, we’ve built an intervention that reaches people at critical moments and guides them toward support before harm can happen. The results underline just how impactful this approach can be – it’s difficult work but it matters, and we’re proud of the progress so far. We remain committed to funding solutions that make the internet safer and to partnerships that deliver lasting change.”

Project Intercept is keen to hear from new potential technology partners. The charity urges technology companies to work with the Foundation’s clinical experts to implement offender-facing warning messages.

For further information, and to discuss interview opportunities with a spokesperson from Lucy Faithfull Foundation please contact:  

Abigail Parry, Communications Manager: +44 7512 334961 / press@lucyfaithfull.org.uk  

Notes to editors   

¹ Over a two-year period, 70 million total triggered warnings averages at 95,890 warnings triggered per day.

² 682,730 people who triggered a warning message clicked through to Stop It Now.

³ Stop It Now is an anonymous and confidential service for anyone concerned about child sexual abuse. An independent evaluation of the Stop It Now helpline found clear demand for the service and evidence that it provides quality, cost-effective advice that can prompt behaviour change and strengthen protective factors that reduce the risk of harm. NatCen Social Research (2014), A public health approach to tackling child sexual abuse: Research on Stop It Now UK and Ireland, funded by the Daphne III programme of the European Union. A further independent evaluation of the Stop It Now helpline is currently underway and will be published later in 2026.

⁴ Engagement rate as defined by Google Analytics as the percentage of engaged sessions.

⁵ Ben is a pseudonym.