New Research Exposes How Offenders Search for and Share CSAM Online

Millions of child sexual abuse images and videos circulate online each year, causing lifelong harm and far outpacing global efforts to stop them. As the UK’s online safety regulator, Ofcom is working to build the strongest possible evidence base to confront this crisis — grounding its approach in the experiences of victims and survivors, and commissioning research that exposes how online harms take shape and how offenders exploit digital platforms.

To address a critical gap in understanding how active offenders search for and share CSAM, Ofcom partnered with Protect Children on an unprecedented anonymous survey of individuals who used the dark web to find this material. The findings offer rare insight into offender behaviour and technology use — but they represent only one part of the problem. This research does not capture the vast number of individuals who encounter or access CSAM on the open web through Google searches, mainstream social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter, or through apps such as Snapchat. The scale of harm on the “surface web” remains significantly under‑measured.

What is especially alarming in the findings is how often early exposure — sometimes accidental — appears to shape later behavior. Many respondents reported first seeing pornography or even CSAM when they themselves were still minors. By age 18, 65% had seen pornography and 59% had already encountered CSAM, with nearly a quarter stumbling upon illegal material without searching for it. These patterns suggest that, for some individuals, the internet itself — not pre‑existing predatory intent — may have played a formative role in their exposure to harmful content.

This is precisely why, in today’s digital environment, it is crucial not to jump to conclusions about the many young people being placed on sex‑offender registries for possession of CSAM. A significant portion may have been exposed to illegal material long before they understood what they were seeing, or before they had the developmental maturity to process it. Some may have encountered CSAM through algorithmic pathways, peer‑to‑peer sharing, or accidental exposure — not through deliberate predatory behavior.

Recognizing this complexity does not diminish the seriousness of the harm. Instead, it underscores the need for nuanced, evidence‑based responses that distinguish between intentional exploitation and young people shaped — or misled — by the very technologies meant to protect them.

To learn more, read the startling findings here.