The Internet Watch Foundation reported that from January 1 to June 30, 2025, it dealt with 153 reports where analysts confirmed sexual extortion against children, compared to 89 such reports in the same period in 2024, a 72% year-on-year increase. In 97% of IWF-confirmed cases, the victims are boys. Criminals typically trick children into sending nude or sexual images which are then used to blackmail them, either for financial gain or to coerce them into sending more extreme imagery.
The IWF data confirms what law enforcement and child-protection agencies across the United Kingdom have known for years: sextortion is accelerating, and boys are disproportionately targeted. Yet platform-level removal of imagery, however vital, occurs after the child has already been coerced, blackmailed and traumatised. Guardii, backed by Startmate and operating as a Meta Business Partner, intervenes at first contact: its anti-sextortion detection identifies coercive financial demands and threats to distribute imagery in real time across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other platforms, blocking the message before the child sees it and immediately alerting a parent, school or appropriate authority — preventing the escalation that IWF analysts catalogue after the fact.
