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The scale of online child sexual abuse is immense: there are more than 300 million child victims of online sexual abuse globally.

But what is the scale of online child sexual abuse in Australia?

Answering this question with certainty is difficult because so many of these crimes go unreported and undetected.

We can estimate, though.

For example, in 2022–23 the Australian Center to Counter Child Exploitation Child Protection Triage Unit of online child sexual abuse materials, while the Australian Federal Police charged 186 offenders with online child sexual abuse crimes. In the past financial year the child protection triage unit number rose .

The United States-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children also

It is difficult to know whether these numbers reflect an increase in perpetration, or improvements in reporting or detection, or a combination. But they do highlight a significant problem that requires immediate action.

Prevention, prevention, prevention

There are many ways to address online child sexual abuse perpetration but broadly, there are three levels: primary, secondary and tertiary.

Traditionally, the most common approach to address online child sexual abuse is tertiary prevention, which means detecting and responding to offenses that have already occurred.

This can involve online .

Then there are primary prevention initiatives, which aim to reduce the potential for risk and prevent the offense from occurring in the first place.

These examples—such as the Australian Federal Police's , and by the Daniel Morcombe Foundation—provide education and resources to encourage healthy and acceptable online (and offline) behaviors.

Much less is known about the secondary prevention level, which looks to intervene early by targeting people who might be most at-risk of or on the cusp of offending.

This approach is important because we want to stop the harm before it happens—and given the scope of the problem, it just isn't practical or sufficient to rely solely on detection and arrest.

How technology can help

So, this was the focus of —what digital secondary prevention interventions have been implemented to prevent online child sexual abuse?

By "digital intervention" we mean "any electronic or online technology that interferes with a course of action that would otherwise result in the perpetration of sexual abuse."

After reviewing more than 1,100 research articles, book chapters and reports, we found just six relevant sources that described digital interventions which had been put into action worldwide.

Of these six examples, three featured , one featured , one featured , and one featured an online media campaign .

In most of these examples, a warning message is a pop-up message that is triggered by an inappropriate search for child sexual abuse material on a pornography website.

Some of these messages included information about the harm to the viewer or the harm to children and young people, while others included warnings that the content is illegal or that police may be able to detect the search.

Some messages also included links to support services so users could seek help for themselves.

Chatbots, on the other hand, are pop-up interactive chat windows that use artificial intelligence to simulate conversations.

In this context, a chatbot can provide warning messages and links to support services while engaging users in a "conversation" to discourage offending behavior and/or encourage help-seeking behaviors.

What are the takeaways?

Overall, our study concluded warning messages and chatbots can be effective at stopping people from continuing to search for child sexual abuse materials, and that messages which increase the perceived risks of detection can be a strong deterrent.

We also suggest these messages could benefit from including information about available supports more often.

But we need more data. We know there are other examples, like warning messages through Meta and Google, which have not yet been studied and could strengthen our findings.

So, while we're onto something really promising, these types of responses are still relatively new and technology is ever-evolving. We do, though, expect to see examples of digital interventions like these becoming increasingly common and widespread to help keep children and young people safe from harm.

No single approach can solve this problem, but a combination of these approaches could make a world of difference in .

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