DONATE REPORT Home About Us Who We Are Annual Report IWF Annual Report 2020 - Face the Facts In 2020, we assessed a webpage every two minutes. Every three minutes, that webpage showed a child being sexually abused. Analysis released in IWF's latest Annual Report (Released April 2021) shows the growing risk children face online, particularly girls aged 11-13, being targeted by criminal sex predators. Key insights from the report show: In 2020, the IWF confirmed 68,000 cases of self-generated imagery. It now accounts for nearly half (44%) the imagery IWF took action on last year (IWF analysts confirmed 153,350 reports of child sexual abuse material in total). This is a 77% increase on 2019’s total of 38,400 reports which included “self-generated” material. New analysis shows in 80% of these cases, the victims were 11 to 13-year-old girls. 299,619 reports were assessed by IWF in 2020: 299,531 were reports of webpages and 88 were reports of newsgroups. 153,383 reports were confirmed as containing child sexual abuse imagery or UK-hosted non-photographic child sexual abuse imagery. This is a 16% increase from 2019. View the full report here. 153,383 Number of confirmed child sexual abuse imagery reports assessed by IWF in 2020 16% Increase in reports assessed by IWF from 2019 to 2020 The scale of the problem is appalling, and our fear is without intervention it will get worse, and more and more girls will fall victim to this pernicious and manipulative form of abuse. This is a pivotal time. With more people spending more time online, predators are finding new ways to contact and manipulate children who are, in many cases, a captive audience at home with their devices. Lockdown has made this worse. Susie Hargreaves OBE, IWF CEO Severity of child sexual abuse according to UK categories A, B & C Category A: number of images showing sexual activity between adults and children including rape or sexual torture including self-penetration. Category B: number of images involving non-penetrative sexual activity. Category C: number of indecent images of children not falling within category A or B. Child sexual abuse imagery reports 2020 *These figures include reports of non-photographic child sexual abuse imagery. **These figures include reports “actioned” for containing child sexual abuse imagery – found on URLs and newsgroups. ***This figure is 153,369 URLs of child sexual abuse material plus 14 newsgroups showing child sexual abuse material. No UK-hosted non-photographic child sexual abuse material was found. Breakdown by sex Analysis of individual image hashes by age of the child and severity of the abuse View our full Annual Report for 2020 See the latest data on what we’re doing globally to tackle child sexual abuse images and videos online. READ MORE View the archive of previous annual reports from the IWF here. NAVIGATION CONTACT US CAREERS USEFUL LINKS FAQS GLOSSARY COMPLAINTS ACCESSIBILITY STATEMENT PRIVACY NOTICE TERMS OF USE INFORMATION SECURITY STATEMENT SITEMAP REPORT SOMETHING ELSE CONNECT WITH US © 2021 Internet Watch Foundation All Rights Reserved | Registered Charity Number: 1112398