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Technology companies and child safety organizations will receive permission to evaluate whether artificial intelligence tools can generate child abuse material under recently introduced British laws.

Significant Increase in AI-Generated Harmful Material

The announcement coincided with findings from a protection monitoring body showing that reports of AI-generated CSAM have more than doubled in the past year, growing from 199 in 2024 to 426 in 2025.

New Legal Structure

Under the amendments, the government will allow designated AI companies and child safety groups to examine AI systems – the underlying technology for conversational AI and visual AI tools – and verify they have adequate safeguards to prevent them from creating depictions of child exploitation.

"Ultimately about preventing exploitation before it happens," declared the minister for AI and online safety, noting: "Experts, under rigorous conditions, can now identify the danger in AI models early."

Tackling Legal Obstacles

The changes have been introduced because it is illegal to produce and own CSAM, meaning that AI creators and others cannot create such content as part of a evaluation process. Until now, authorities had to wait until AI-generated CSAM was uploaded online before dealing with it.

This law is designed to averting that problem by enabling to halt the production of those images at their origin.

Legal Structure

The changes are being added by the authorities as revisions to the criminal justice legislation, which is also implementing a prohibition on possessing, producing or distributing AI models designed to generate exploitative content.

Practical Consequences

This week, the official toured the London headquarters of a children's helpline and listened to a mock-up call to advisors featuring a account of AI-based abuse. The call portrayed a teenager requesting help after facing extortion using a sexualised deepfake of himself, constructed using AI.

"When I hear about young people facing extortion online, it is a source of intense frustration in me and justified concern amongst parents," he stated.

Concerning Data

A prominent internet monitoring foundation stated that cases of AI-generated abuse material – such as online pages that may include numerous images – had more than doubled so far this year.

Cases of the most severe material – the gravest form of abuse – increased from 2,621 visual files to 3,086.

• Female children were predominantly victimized, accounting for 94% of illegal AI images in 2025
• Depictions of infants to two-year-olds increased from five in 2024 to 92 in 2025

Industry Response

The legislative amendment could "represent a vital step to ensure AI tools are safe before they are released," commented the chief executive of the online safety foundation.

"AI tools have made it so survivors can be victimised all over again with just a few clicks, providing offenders the capability to make potentially limitless quantities of sophisticated, lifelike exploitative content," she continued. "Content which further commodifies victims' trauma, and makes children, especially female children, less safe both online and offline."

Support Session Information

The children's helpline also published details of counselling interactions where AI has been mentioned. AI-related risks discussed in the conversations include:

• Using AI to evaluate body size, physique and appearance
• AI assistants discouraging children from talking to trusted guardians about harm
• Being bullied online with AI-generated material
• Online extortion using AI-faked pictures

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

Half of the mentions of AI in the 2025 sessions were related to mental health and wellbeing, including using chatbots for support and AI therapy apps.