Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many online child sexual abuse offences have been recorded in England and Wales in the last 3 years.

Online child sexual abuse offences are captured in police recorded crime via an online crime flag being applied to a series of offences deemed most likely to be child sexual abuse. This includes contact sexual offences and obscene publications offences which act as a proxy for indecent images of children (IIOC) offences.

In April 2015, it became mandatory for all forces to return quarterly information on the number of crimes flagged as being committed online as part of the Annual Data Requirement (ADR). Since April 2024 this has been supported by the National Data Quality Improvement Service (NDQIS) which aims to improve the quality and consistency of flagging. Data released prior to 2024 are not directly comparable due to the move to NDQIS.

The online crime flag refers to any crime committed either in full, or in part, through use of online methods or platforms. The online crime flag helps provide a national and local picture of how internet and digital communications technology are being used to commit crimes, and an understanding of the prominence of certain crimes that are happening online, compared to offline.

An offence should be flagged where online methods or internet-based activities were used to facilitate the offence (e.g. through email, social media, websites, messaging platforms, gaming platforms, or smart devices). In April 2024, recording guidelines were amended to clarify that offences committed via SMS text messages or online-platform-enabled phone calls should also be flagged.

These data are published quarterly via the Office for National Statistics (ONS), originally in ‘Other related tables’ and now in ‘Appendix tables’ as per links below.

Note: Data across the year are not comparable due to continued improvements to the processing of online flags.

The Government is committed to tackling all forms of child sexual abuse and exploitation and is committed to taking robust action to better safeguard children, ensuring victims and survivors receive appropriate care and support and pursuing offenders and bringing them to justice.