Images of child sexual abuse created using Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications are on the rise, making it increasingly difficult to identify victims and perpetrators, warned today Europol.

“The volume of automatically generated images of sexual material is now a significant and growing part of sexual child pornography on the Internet” and “expected to spread further in the near future”, the European police service based in The Hague underlines in its report.

Even in cases where the content is entirely creation Artificial Intelligence and do not depict actual victims, child pornography material created by TN still contributes to the objectification and sexualisation of children, Europol stressed.

The use of AI applications to create or modify sexual child pornography material also increases “the amount of illegal material in circulation and complicates the identification of victims as well as perpetrators.”

The advent of Artificial Intelligence applications is raising concerns about the use of these applications for malicious purposes, particularly through creating “deepfakes” – computer-generated images and videos, often realistic, based on a real model.

More than 300 million children are victims of online sexual exploitation and abuse each year, researchers from the University of Edinburgh said in May.

The offenses range from extortion targeting teenagers after posting sexual photos and videos online (“sextorsion”), to the abusive use of Artificial Intelligence to create fake videos and images, according to investigators.

As well as creating grossly indecent images of minors, criminals are using AI to commit a range of crimes ranging from online fraud to cyber-attacks, the 37-page Europol document, which maps the online threats Europe is currently facing, also says .