How do you report online CSAE?
When it is identified, Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (CSAE) should be reported to your local Police to enable effective safeguarding of potential victims and investigation of suspected criminal activity.
When to report
If your organisation is based in the UK, examples of when you should make a report of suspected online CSAE offences are if you:
- have identified suspected grooming behaviour,
- have identified suspected coercion or blackmail involving children,
- have identified indecent images of children (photos or videos) created, stored and/or shared using your services, or
- have grounds to be concerned about the safety of a child from crime or serious harm (including self-harm or suicide).
How to make a report
The requirements for user-to-user providers in-scope of the Online Safety Act 2023 to report detected and unreported CSAE to the NCA came into effect on 7 April 2026.
For more information on the Online Safety Act and how in-scope user-to-user providers can report to the NCA, please visit our dedicated NCA webpage.
If you have immediate concerns about the safety of a child you should always call 999.
For organisations based outside of the United Kingdom
Please report suspected online CSAE offending on your platform to your local police or via existing reporting mechanisms in place in your country.
How to report indecent images of children (IIOC) for removal across multiple platforms?
If you suspect that IIOC present on your platform has been shared on other online platforms you can report it to the IWF who will assess the image for inclusion on their hash list of known IIOC.
Information on when and how to report to the IWF can be found here www.iwf.org.uk/report.
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