UK agencies have issued a joint statement urging parents to keep their children safe online over the summer holidays.
For the first time, Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP), MI5, and the National Crime Agency (NCA) have issued a public warning to parents and carers, stating that online offenders will seek to exploit the school holidays to engage in criminal activity with children.
CTP and the NCA have said they are increasingly seeing children being routinely exposed to serious harmful content online, including sexual violence, self-harm, extreme gore, animal cruelty, indecent images of children, and terrorist content.
The agencies noted that children can quickly become acclimatised to this ‘bombardment of online harms’, with some of the children who come to the attention of CTP and the NCA having become completely desensitised to extreme and obscene content.
CTP and MI5 are seeing high levels of young people in terrorism-related investigations, with 2023 seeing the highest-ever recorded number of young people being arrested for terrorism-related offences.
Of the 219 people arrested for terrorism-related offences in 2023, 42 were aged 17 or under. In 2024, this decreased slightly, with 39 young people aged 17 or under arrested for terrorism-related offences.
“As outlined in our recent threat assessment, there is a fast-growing threat from sadistic and violent online gangs, made up predominantly of teenage boys, dedicated to inflicting harm and committing a range of criminality which includes fraud, cyber, child sexual abuse, violence and extremism/terror related offences,” said NCA Director of Threat Leadership Alexander Murray.
“They are international and operate across multiple channels, including messaging apps, gaming platforms and other online forums.”
“We are working closely with our partners in response to this complex threat, but we recommend that adults take time to understand the online lives of young people to help prevent them falling victim to these networks,” Murray said.
MI5 Director General Sir Ken McCallum noted that of all those investigated by MI5 for involvement in terrorism last year, 13% were under 18.
“That deeply concerning presence of young people in our casework continues to this day,” McCallum said.
“In a few short clicks, young people can be speaking to dangerous radicalising terrorists online, consuming violent and extremist content. Terrorists who understand online culture are using slick propaganda to pull young people down a dangerous and potentially life-changing path.”
This issue is not unique to the United Kingdom, with the leaders of counter terrorism for the ‘Five Eyes’ nations last year calling for immediate international action to fight the growing threat to children posed by online extremism.
“We of course encourage parents to activate parental controls on routers, devices, and apps, but this should be alongside conversations that give young people the tools and strategies to make the right decisions when online,” said Vicki Evans, CTP Senior National Coordinator for Prevent and Pursue.
“If you haven’t already, please start the conversation about online safety as soon as possible.”
Leave a Reply