The United Kingdom is poised to become the first nation to introduce legislation specifically targeting the creation, possession, and distribution of artificial intelligence tools used to generate sexualized images of children, Al Jazeera reports.
The move comes amid growing concerns over the proliferation of AI-generated child sexual abuse material online, with the government citing the need to address the increasingly prevalent and disturbing phenomenon.
The Home Office announced on Saturday that the new laws will make it a criminal offense to possess, create, or distribute AI tools designed for the production of abusive child images. Individuals found guilty of these offenses could face up to five years in prison. According to the government, these tools are being used to “nudeify” real-life images of children or to “stitch the faces of other children onto existing images,” demonstrating the sophisticated and harmful nature of the technology.
The legislation will also target the spread of information related to the abuse. Possessing AI “paedophile manuals” that provide instructions on how to use AI for child sexual abuse will be punishable by up to three years in prison. Moreover, the new laws will criminalize those who operate websites designed for paedophiles to share child sexual abuse content or grooming advice, with penalties of up to 10 years in prison.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, speaking to the BBC on Sunday, emphasized the urgent need for this legislation. She said that a recent inquiry revealed that some 500,000 children across the UK are victims of child abuse each year, with online abuse representing a “growing and increasing part” of that figure.
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a British non-profit organization dedicated to combating online abuse, has been at the forefront of raising awareness about the growing threat of AI-generated child sexual abuse images. Over a 30-day period in 2024, the IWF identified 3,512 such images on a single dark web site. They also found that the number of the most severe category of these images had increased by 10% in a single year.
