The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation reported an unprecedented surge in online child exploitation CyberTips: 12,169 reports in the first three months of 2026 alone, some of the highest numbers ever received by the SBI. The average number of monthly CyberTips jumped from 411 in 2019 to 4,382 in 2025, and is expected to rise further in 2026, with investigators warning that 'wherever the kids are is where the predators are going to be.'
CyberTip volume reflects the scale of reported abuse, but each tip represents a child already victimised — a conversation that escalated to exploitation before anyone intervened. The Meta Business Partner and Startmate-backed online-safety platform Guardii addresses the operational gap those numbers expose: its real-time detection across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and Roblox identifies grooming, sextortion and CSAM solicitation at the point of first contact, blocking the message before the child sees it, and enabling agencies to prioritise the most acute threats rather than triage thousands of reports weeks after the fact.
