Reports of online child exploitation have surged by 45 percent in just one year, Public Safety Canada said, urging parents to engage in conversations with their children.
“Open conversations with your kids can close opportunities for predators,” the department said in a Dec. 23 post on the social media platform X, where it shared the figure.
The statistic on the rise in online child exploitation was shared by Cybertip.ca, Canada’s national tipline for reporting the sexual exploitation of children, operated by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (CCCP). In 2023, Cybertip.ca reported processing a total of 27,429 reports.
Ontario led the case numbers with 6,710 reports, followed by British Columbia with 2,003, and Quebec with 1,557. The tipline also received 8,609 reports from international sources.
The majority of reported incidents, 21,164 cases, involved individuals possessing, manufacturing, distributing, or accessing child sexual abuse material, including child pornography. Additionally, 2,797 reports concerned “online harms to children,” while 2,785 involved “luring a child.”
Online child sexual exploitation is defined as when children are manipulated into viewing or participating in sexual online encounters, according to Public Safety Canada.
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The department highlighted several key dangers of online child sexual exploitation, including grooming, where an adult builds trust with a child to manipulate and control the child by normalizing inappropriate behaviours. Cybertip.ca also warned that child grooming can occur offline, noting that 500 students were sexually victimized, or allegedly victimized, by school personnel between 2017 and 2021, involving about 252 current or former employees in Canadian K-12 schools.
Another concern is “sexting,” where children share sexual messages, images, or videos online. Public Safety Canada warned that while older kids may see it as harmless, once shared, these materials are out of the child’s control and can cause lasting harm. A more dangerous form, sextortion, involves blackmail, where a person threatens to distribute sexual content of the child unless they provide more, pay money, or comply with other demands.
Additionally, “capping” involves adults recording or taking screenshots of youths engaged in sexual activities on video platforms or apps, often without the victims’ knowledge. The perpetrator may then share the video or use it to sexually extort the victim.
Jacques Marcoux, Director of Research and Analytics at CCCP, highlighted the role of online service providers in sexting and sextortion during his testimony before the House of Commons Heritage Committee on Dec. 11.
“On any given day, we issue anywhere between 2,000 to 20,000 take-down notices to hundreds of online service providers across dozens of countries,” Marcoux said, adding, “This isn’t hypothetical and it isn’t philosophical; this is real, and it happens on mainstream services that all of us use.”
