More than 70 million warning messages have been sent to people who search online for child sexual abuse material (CSAM), according to new data reported by BBC and Sky News. The warnings are designed to highlight that accessing or seeking such content is illegal and to discourage further attempts to find it. The reports say the messages also direct recipients to help and support resources.
The figures cover activity over the past two years and relate to individuals whose online searching triggered alerts. Both outlets describe the warnings as part of efforts to intervene when searches for CSAM are detected, rather than reporting prosecutions or specific case outcomes. The overall emphasis in the coverage is on the scale of the intervention and the legal and safeguarding message conveyed through the warnings. Neither report attributes the data to a single enforcement body in the provided summaries, but both agree on the headline figure of more than 70 million warnings and the purpose of the communications.
