Tens of thousands of digital grooming crimes recorded during wait for online safety bill | Internet safety

Tens of thousands of online grooming crimes have been recorded during the wait for updated online safety laws.

The online safety bill is expected to become law in the autumn, but has faced a lengthy route to the statute book with repeated changes and delays to the proposed legislation.

Ministers have been forced to defend the bill in recent days amid concern from tech companies that it will undermine the use of encryption.

The NSPCC has called on tech firms and MPs to back the bill as it said that 34,000 online grooming crimes had been recorded by UK police forces over the last six years.

The charity first called for more robust online safety regulation in 2017.

Citing data from 42 UK police forces, the NSPCC said that 6,350 offences related to sexual communication with a child were recorded last year – a rise of 82% since the offence was introduced in 2017-18.

The data shows that 73% of the crimes involved Snapchat or Meta-linked websites, with 5,500 offences taking place against primary school-age children.

Parliament will finish debating the bill when summer recess ends in a few weeks.

NSPCC chief executive, Sir Peter Wanless, said: “Today’s research highlights the sheer scale of child abuse happening on social media and the human cost of fundamentally unsafe products.

“The number of offences must serve as a reminder of why the online safety bill is so important and why the groundbreaking protections it will give children are desperately needed.

“We’re pleased the government has listened and strengthened the legislation so companies must tackle how their sites contribute to child sexual abuse in a tough but proportionate way, including in private messaging.”

The charity said the figures showed that in cases where the gender of the victim was known, 83% of social media grooming cases in the last six years took place against girls.

About 150 apps, games and websites were used to target children, according to the police data.

The NSPCC said that the bill was vital if children were to be protected from abuse. If passed, it would introduce tougher duties on firms and tech bosses to protect young users.

But the NSPCC also wants assurances that the legislation will regulate new technologies, such as AI.

“It’s now up to tech firms, including those highlighted by these stark figures today, to make sure their current sites and future services do not put children at unacceptable risk of abuse,” Wanless said.

Susie Hargreaves, chief executive of the Internet Watch Foundation, said: “We urge companies to make sure there are robust safety features brought in if they intend to introduce end-to-end encryption to their platforms.

“Without them, end-to-end encryption will be a smokescreen for abusers, helping them hide what they’re doing, and enabling them to continue to hurt children and destroy young lives.

“Some of the worst sexual predators in the world can now have potentially any child within their grasp with a few clicks of a mouse’s button. The internet has allowed access to those who want to groom and sexually abuse children, and we deal with the fallout every day.”

A government spokesperson said the online safety bill would become law “in a matter of months”. They added: “We’re working closely with Ofcom to make sure [protections for children] are enforced as soon as possible … and in the meantime, law enforcement has been working closely with social media platforms to bring perpetrators to justice for the abhorrent crimes that are committed online.”