Sextortion
What sextortion is, how it targets young people, and what to do if your child is being blackmailed with intimate images.
Sextortion is a form of blackmail in which someone threatens to share sexual images or information about a child unless they provide money, more images, or other demands.
What is this?
Sextortion occurs when someone threatens to share intimate or sexual images of a child unless they comply with demands — often for more images, money, or other favours. It is a growing threat that disproportionately affects teenagers, and it can escalate very rapidly.
How it works
Offenders typically make contact through social media or gaming platforms, often posing as a peer or romantic interest. After building trust, they persuade the young person to share an intimate image. Once obtained, they threaten to send it to friends, family, or school contacts unless the child complies with further demands. Some organised crime groups run sextortion operations at scale, targeting multiple victims simultaneously.
Warning signs
In your child
- • Sudden extreme anxiety, panic, or emotional distress — particularly after using their device
- • Withdrawing from family and friends and appearing frightened or hopeless
- • Asking for money or gift cards without a clear reason
On their device
- • Receiving messages from unknown accounts that contain threats or demands
- • Evidence of video calls with strangers in the device's call history
- • Sudden deletion of an entire social media account or creation of new accounts
Prevention steps
Say the one sentence that matters most
Tell your teenager, in plain words, that if anyone ever pressures or blackmails them over an image, they can come to you and will not be in trouble — full stop. This single pre-agreed rule is what makes a frightened child stop and tell instead of paying in silence.
Teach critical thinking about online identities
Help your child understand that people online may not be who they claim to be. Discuss how offenders use fake photos, flattery, and emotional manipulation to build false trust — and that financially-motivated scammers specifically target teenage boys.
Lock down privacy and DMs together
Sit with them and set social profiles so only approved contacts can message or view them, and disable the ability for strangers to start video calls. Doing it together, rather than to them, keeps the channel open.
What to do if it happens
- 1Reassure your child immediately — they are the victim, not the offender, and they are not in trouble.
- 2Do not pay or comply with any demands, as this almost always leads to further threats.
- 3Report to CEOP, contact the police on 101, and report the account to the platform. The IWF can also help remove images.
Related topics
If you need to report this
In immediate danger: call 999. For non-emergency police matters, call 101.
Concerned about a child but it's not an emergency? NSPCC helpline 0808 800 5000. Childline for young people 0800 1111.
This is practical educational content to support families. For case-specific concerns about a child's safety, contact the NSPCC helpline on 0808 800 5000 or your local safeguarding team.
The picture in the UK
19%
of children aged 10–15 in England and Wales exchanged messages online with someone they had never met in person in the last year.
NSPCC Learning (ONS data), year ending March 20232,444
Childline counselling sessions delivered to children and young people about online sexual abuse and exploitation — up 36% on the year before. This counts sessions, not individual children.
NSPCC (Childline), April 2025 to March 2026462
Report Remove reports involving sextortion confirmed by the IWF as containing child sexual abuse imagery by the end of June 2026 (394 in all of 2025). These are reports to the IWF and Childline service for under-18s in the UK, not a count of children, and not a measure of how common sextortion is.
Internet Watch Foundation, 1 January to 30 June 2026Myths & facts
Myth: Sextortion only happens to girls.
Fact: Financially-motivated sextortion overwhelmingly targets teenage boys. Scammers pose as attractive young women, obtain an image, then demand money — and law enforcement has warned this is one of the fastest-growing threats to teenage boys specifically.
Myth: If you just pay, they will delete it and leave you alone.
Fact: Paying almost never stops the demands — it signals that the target will comply, and the threats usually continue. The advice from police is do not pay, stop all contact, keep the evidence, and report.
Myth: My child would never send an intimate image, so this can't happen to us.
Fact: These scammers are skilled, patient manipulators who pose convincingly as a peer and move fast. Bright, sensible teenagers are targeted and caught out every day — which is exactly why talking about it in advance matters more than assuming immunity.
Age by age
- 8-10
Keep it simple: never share photos with someone they only know online, and always tell you if anyone asks them to.
- 11-13
Talk directly about people posing as peers to get images, and make the 'you will never be in trouble for telling me' rule explicit before they are on social media unsupervised.
- 14-16
Be explicit about financial sextortion, that boys are heavily targeted, and rehearse the exact steps: stop contact, do not pay, screenshot, and tell a trusted adult or report to CEOP.
- 17-plus
Reinforce that it can happen to anyone, that it is never their fault, and that reporting and support (including Report Remove) are available even over 18.
What to say
Full conversation guides: consent intimate images talk, talking about catfishing
A real-world example
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Resources
Sources
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