A study on the Global Scale and Nature of Technology-facilitated Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Childlight, based at the University of Edinburgh, is a research centre dedicated to uncovering the scale, prevalence, and nature of global child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA). Its inaugural Global Index focuses specifically on technology facilitated CSEA, recognising the central role that digital systems, platforms, and connectivity infrastructures play in enabling or interrupting harm.
This May, Childlight will publish updated global data on technology facilitated CSEA. The report highlights how technology companies and online service providers can reduce risk, strengthen user trust, and contribute to safer online environments. Using large scale datasets as proxy indicators of different forms of harm, the report examines global patterns in CSEA content availability and distribution, and considers what these patterns suggest about the types of responses required. Although platform level interventions play a critical role, the findings indicate that broader coordinated action across sectors and jurisdictions is also required.
The presentation will outline how data on CSEA file sharing and availability can serve as evidence to guide policy, technical safeguards, and operational decision making. It will also describe the development of the global technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation and abuse (TF-CSEA) data landscape, including how iterative feedback and methodological refinement have strengthened the resulting recommendations.
These recommendations are intended as a starting point for discussion. Some proposals are immediately actionable, while others will require further evidence, technical exploration, or collaborative refinement. At Childlight we have worked with technology partners to help utilise their data to highlight safeguarding efforts as well as need for further investment into response. This presentation is hoped to encourage potential future partnerships with other attendees by showing our academic rigour and understanding of this complex issue.