Parents who post pictures of their kids online are being told to rethink the habit. The UK's National Crime Agency and the Internet Watch Foundation have issued new guidance urging families to lock down their social media accounts, warning that publicly shared photos are increasingly being pulled and altered by AI tools to create child sexual abuse material.

The two organizations say most parents have no idea this is happening. Criminals no longer need to contact a child directly to generate such material. They can scrape an ordinary photo and run it through widely available nudify apps.

What the guidance recommends

The NCA and IWF are not telling parents to stop posting images of their kids entirely. Their guidance focuses on limiting who can see those photos by making social media accounts private or sharing images within a close friends list. Parents are also being asked to check their accounts for old photos that could be misused, including photos posted by relatives or friends.

Tim Wright, a senior manager at the NCA, said the changes only require a few simple actions. Lorna Sinclair, a child sexual abuse education manager at the agency, said many parents do not take those steps because they do not realize the problem exists in the first place.

The scale of the problem

The IWF says AI-generated abuse material rose 14 percent last year, with more than 8,000 confirmed images and videos identified in 2025 alone. Cases have included blackmail attempts against teenagers and school websites targeted specifically for photos of students faces.

Even the IWF's own technology chief admits the advice feels uncomfortable to give, since it puts the burden on families rather than the platforms or AI developers. Until stronger safeguards exist, tightening privacy settings may be the only real protection parents have.