Deepfake Detection for Investigating IIOC & CSAM
Indecent Images of Children (IIOC), otherwise classified as Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), Child Sexual Abuse Imagery (CSAI), or Child Sexual Exploitation Imagery (CSEI), are a significant problem being rapidly exacerbated by the democratization of generative AI.
Child sexual abuse offenders are using AI to synthesize photorealistic material, create hybrid media containing real children, or manipulate authentic images. Gen-AI is often used to depict the most severe and graphic forms of child sexual abuse.
In 2025, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) assessed 8,029 AI-generated images and videos depicting child sexual abuse. Video is the fastest growing category, increasing a staggering 26,385% to 3,443 videos, from 13 in 2024. 65% of these videos were classified Category A.
US organization the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NMEC) said that its CyberTipline received 21.3 million reports of child sexual exploitation incidents, resulting in 61.8 million images, videos and other files being investigated. More than 53,000 reports were urgent or involved a child in imminent danger.
Deepfake-Driven Child Sexual Abuse
Deepfake, hybrid, and manipulated CSAM and IIOC
Generative AI is used to create media featuring fully synthetic but photorealistic scenes involving children. It is also used to create hybrid, or AI manipulated scenes involving real children, leading to the the revictimization of known victims of CSAM with offenders using AI to manipulate existing abusive imagery to create new media.
According to child safety nonprofit Thorn, generative AI is contributing to an increase in the amount of violent and extreme material in circulation.
Sextortion and coercion
Deepfakes based on real people can be used to extort, blackmail and coerce victims, including pressuring victims into sending real compromising photos, pay the offender money, or in some cases groom a child to ultimately meet face-to-face with someone for sexual purposes or result in child sex trafficking. The NMEC CyberTipline received more than 80,000 reports concerning sextortion in 2025.
Sexual harassment
While Generative AI CSAM (GAI CSAM) is a growing criminal problem due to commodification of the technology, it is also a societal problem among young people themselves, with individuals – oftentimes classmates or local peers – leveraging “nudify” apps to create and spread harmful media.
In South Korea, the National Police Agency (NPA) made 682 arrests over deepfake sex crimes in 2024-2025. However, more than 80% were minors themselves, many of which are exempt from criminal prosecution.
Deepfake IIOC and CSAM challenges
Deepfake-driven sexual crimes against children, including CSAM, CSAI, CSEI, and IIOC are a significant challenge for law enforcement due to the massive scale of the problem, with tens of millions of illegal images and videos created every year.
The Crime-as-a-Service (CaaS) phenomenon, which automates and scales many aspects of criminal activity, such as Discord and Telegram bots capable of generating synthetic sexual content on demand, lowers the barrier to entry for newcomers, with pre-packaged tools and services available on criminal forums and the dark web.
The attack surface is also highly fragmented. Evidence no longer arrives as a handful of files. It comes as mixed media from many origins at once: seized phones and drives, online platforms, material shared by partner agencies, and public tip lines. A single operation into child sex crimes routinely produces thousands to tens of thousands of files of every type.
Speed is also of the essence. When investigating officers seize the computer of a suspected pedophile, they have a matter of hours to search through thousands of files – not just to build a charge, but to identify whether there is a real child in those files who needs to be found and safeguarded. Historically, that meant searching for and looking through real CSAM photos or videos. But today, this material is mixed with AI-generated or manipulated files.That triage decision, under time pressure, is where the investigative burden is falling.
Forensic-grade evidence analysis for investigating deepfake CSAM
Scalable, automated and multilayer analysis with court-ready reports
Every result includes explainability, provenance metadata, and visual evidence supporting the conclusion. Reports are automatically generated in 30+ languages, enabling cross-border collaboration and ensuring admissibility in court.
Get actionable results in seconds, not hours
With standardized reporting, multilingual support, and strict chain-of-custody controls, Sensity AI transforms media authentication into actionable, certifiable intelligence. Investigators can export structured evidence packages for prosecutors, international partners, or judicial authorities.
Stay on top of the caseload
With millions of deepfakes in circulation, digital forensic investigators are under increasing pressure to work through large case loads. The complexity is not any one file. It is the combination of multiple files of different types. Sensity AI integrates synthetic media and deepfake detection at the earliest stage of evidence ingestion, so every extracted media file can be automatically screened for signs of manipulation before it enters the investigative record, speeding up time to evidence.
Cutting edge digital forensics
Specialist digital forensic analysis tools have always existed, but they are not equipped for detecting sophisticated AI-generated falsifications at scale. Sensity AI analyzes video, images, and audio within a single interface, automatically detecting audio in video, and provides relevant and contextual analysis within the same dashboard in real-time.
