A guide for parents on how AI is manipulating photos of children – and practical tips to prevent it from happening to their child.
Artificial intelligence is in all our apps these days. But, despite its many helpful features, it is also being misused in harmful ways – one of which is manipulating photos of children on social media to transform them into child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), together with the National Crime Agency (NCA), has launched a new AI Child Sexual Abuse Imagery: Parent Safety Guide to help families understand and respond to this developing trend.
Practical tips for parents
The guide explains how innocent family photos, such as a child at the beach, in the garden or playing at home, can be taken from social media or messaging apps and altered with AI tools to create illegal child sexual abuse imagery. Most worryingly, this can happen without the child or parents ever knowing their picture has been misused.
The IWF’s resource focuses on practical steps parents can take to reduce the risk and to act quickly if they are concerned about how an image of their child has been used.
The IWF parent guide includes:
- A short film showing how everyday photos can be manipulated and how this affects child safety.
- Simple changes parents can make to privacy settings and sharing habits to make images harder to copy or abuse.
- Straightforward advice on talking to children about photos, AI tools and consent in an age‑appropriate way.
- Clear guidance on what to do and who to contact if parents suspect a photo of their child has been altered or shared as abuse material.
Free to download and share
The guide has been designed for busy parents, carers and professionals who support families. Schools, clubs and community organisations are also encouraged to pass it on so that more families understand both the risks and the protections available.
Read the AI Child Sexual Abuse Imagery: Parent Safety Guide here
