Schools are confronting a disturbing new threat in the AI era, with cyber criminals using sexually explicit AI deepfakes of students to blackmail schools. The AI videos are often created using photos taken from school websites and social media pages.
Experts warn the problem is becoming increasingly serious as AI tools become more sophisticated, accessible and widely used.
Dr Catherine Knibbs, a child safety expert in the United Kingdom, recently highlighted the issue in a post on social media, where she used an example of a school sharing a photo of a girls’ team at a football tournament to its website and social media.
“The next day, the school receives an email with very real-looking videos, and it’s of those girls being abused and doing unspeakable things,” Dr Knibbs said.
“The email says the videos will be shared online unless the school pays them money. It’s blackmail. The videos are AI. They aren’t real, but this story is very real.”
It comes as the UK’s National Crime Agency has issued a recommendation that schools should avoid posting pictures of students because cyber criminals are using AI to transform these images into child sexual abuse material.
“It’s then being used to blackmail schools and ruin lives,” Dr Knibbs said.
“I’ve personally worked on cases like this as a child trauma and online harms expert, and the cases are sickening, but it’s just schools, right? Well, what about those family photos you or Grandpa or Grandma posted on their Facebook account last week, last year. Do you think they’re different?
“I’ve spent years telling parents [to] stop posting pictures of children online, and I post advice about it and what to do if you or they are victims of these cyber criminals.”
Recent research published by the Internet Watch Foundation showed 2025 was the worst year on record for online child sexual abuse material, with photo-realisitic AI material contributing to the surge.
In 2025, the organisation discovered 3,440AI videos of child sexual abuse, an increase of 26,362% on 2024, when only 13 such videos were found. Of these videos, 65 per cent were categorised as Category A, meaning the imagery may contain penetration, sexual torture and bestiality.
“When images and videos of children suffering sexual abuse are distributed online, it makes everyone, especially those children, less safe,” CEO of IWF Kerry Smith said when the research was released in Janurary.
“Our analysts work tirelessly to get this imagery removed to give victims some hope. But now AI has moved on to such an extent, criminals essentially can have their own child sexual abuse machines to make whatever they want to see
“The frightening rise in extreme Category A videos of AI generated child sexual abuse shows the kind of things criminals want. And it is dangerous. Easy availability of this material will only embolden those with a sexual interest in children, fuel its commercialisation, and further endanger children both on and offline.”
In recent weeks, the National Crime Agency in the UK issued an alert to hundreds of thousands of education professionals following a considerable increase in global cases of financially motivated sexual extortion, or sextortion. The alert included advice about spotting the signs of this abuse, supporting young people and encouraging them to seek help.
It also includes guidance to be shared to parents and carers on how to talk to their child about sextortion, and how to support them if they become a victim.
The National Crime Agency said all age groups and genders are being targeted, but noted 91 per cent of victims in UK sextortion cases dealt with by the Internet Watch Foundation in 2023 were male. Sextortion has been linked to the suicides of several British teenagers.