Extended Reality, AI May Lead To More Cases Of Child Sexual Abuse - UK Crime Agency

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th July, 2023) Extended reality and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies represent an emerging threat to children's security, as they give offenders new opportunities to commit sexual abuse, the United Kingdom's National Crime Agency (NCA) said in a report.

"Extended reality technologies, such as augmented and virtual reality, have been identified as evolving threats. This technology provides the ability to manipulate or merge virtual and physical worlds, and is an increasingly standard addition to technology already in use. It is a realistic possibility that extreme or indecent acts conducted within the virtual world could act as an early pathway to further child sexual abuse offending," the NCA said in its National Strategic Assessment 2023.

The agency also noted that AI-generated images and sharing of them can lead to child sexual abuse in real life.

The watchdog added that there are up to 830,000 adult sex offenders in the UK, which is about 1.6% of the population, who pose a various level of threat to children.

AI-generated materials depicting child sexual abuse are illegal in the UK under the 2009 Coroners and Justice Act. The law prohibits making and possessing indecent "pseudo-photographs" of minors, although it does not target pictures created by AI directly.