Report illegal images on the internet

Unfortunately the internet is not immune from criminal abuse. The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) provides a hotline for the general public and IT professionals to report criminal online content in a secure and confidential way.

This includes:

• child sexual abuse images hosted anywhere in the world
• criminally obscene adult content hosted in the UK
• non-photographic child sexual abuse images hosted in the UK

If you genuinely stumble across such images accidentally, or are inadvertently exposed to them you must report them to the IWF.

How do I report?

Go to the IWF website and complete the step-by-step form. The form is easy to navigate and reports can be submitted anonymously.

Many people contact the police if they want to report potentially illegal content, however as 99% of such content is hosted abroad the majority of complaints of this nature fall outside of the jurisdiction of UK police so referring such reports to the IWF’s website can help to save valuable police time and resources.

Why should I report these images?

Reports from the public helps the IWF to combat this content and where possible, have it removed. This makes the internet a safer place for everyone.

Child sexual abuse images reflect the real abuse of a child and your reports to the IWF might help the authorities to trace and rescues a young victim from further abuse.

It is an offence to deliberately seek out illegal images and purposely viewing child sexual abuse images can carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.