Sharing, strangers and AI-faked photos

The pattern is consistent enough to describe in a few lines. Someone makes contact somewhere a child already is — a game, a messaging app, a comment section — and is friendly, interested and generous. They often pretend to be a similar age. They move the conversation somewhere more private as soon as they can. They ask for a photo, then a different kind of photo. The moment they have one, the warmth disappears and the threats start: pay, or send more, or everyone you know sees this.

Two things have changed recently. The first is motive. A large share of these offenders are not local predators but overseas criminals running it as a business, at volume, for money — eSafety received more than 2,000 sexual extortion complaints in the six months to December 2025 alone. They work fast, sometimes within an hour of first contact, and teenage boys are now a primary target, usually approached by an account posing as a girl their age.

The second change is AI, and it matters more than anything else on this page: the photo no longer has to be real, and the child no longer has to have sent anything at all. So-called nudify apps take an ordinary clothed photo — a school photo, a holiday photo, a profile picture — and alter it to look as though the child is naked. The result is good enough to terrify a twelve year old into paying. eSafety has forced several of these services out of Australia and has enforcement action running against others, and reports of digitally altered intimate images involving children have more than doubled in eighteen months. In schools, the people doing the editing are frequently other students.

This cuts both ways for a parent. It means any photo of your child can be the raw material, so an ordinary photo is no longer harmless once it is public. It also means a threat may be pure bluff. Either way the response is identical, and it is the one above: do not pay, keep the evidence, report it.

Blackmail is a problem of the teenage years. The habits that prevent it are not — they are built now, at the age when a child first asks to play a game with voice chat.

The Australian Child Maltreatment Study, which eSafety cites, found that around 1 in 13 Australians had a sexual image of themselves shared without consent before turning 18, and nearly 1 in 5 experienced grooming behaviour from an adult. Of all the children who were groomed online, 1 in 4 were under twelve. Girls are affected considerably more often. eSafety's own research found 55% of young people have communicated with someone they first met online.

Australia now requires certain social media platforms to take reasonable steps to keep under-16s from holding accounts, which helps. It does not cover the places young children actually are: games, chat inside games, messaging apps and video calls. Those are where first contact usually happens.

A four year old does not need to hear about any of the above. What they need is the rule, the permission to come to you, and the certainty that they will not be in trouble when they do. That is the whole job at this age, and it is the thing that works later.

This part is written to be read aloud, as it is, to a four to eight year old. It uses the body-safety framing eSafety recommends: your body belongs to you, and that includes pictures of it.

Say the last one often, and mean it. Offenders rely entirely on shame and secrecy; a child who is certain they will not be punished is a child the threat does not work on. It is worth naming two or three other trusted adults as well — a teacher, a grandparent — so there is always someone to go to when you are not there.

Adapted from eSafety's guidance for talking with 0 to 12 year olds. The aim is a short conversation repeated often, not one serious talk.

Around four and five

Keep it about the body and about asking for help. “Your body is yours. Nobody is allowed to ask you for pictures of your body, and if anyone does, you come and tell me straight away and I will be glad you did.” Sit with them while they play. Say yes every time they call you over, so that calling you over stays easy.

Around six and seven

Add strangers and secrets. “Lots of people use the internet, so we are careful about who we talk to, like at the park. Some people do not want what is best for us. They might ask questions you do not like, or ask for rude photos. A person who asks you to keep a secret from me is not being a friend.”

Around eight and up

You can be plainer, and you should add AI, because at this age they have seen filters and know images can be changed. “Computers can now change a normal photo to make it look like something it is not. So if someone ever shows you a photo of you that you know is fake and says they will send it to everyone, it is a trick, and it is a crime they are committing — not you. Come straight to me. We do not pay them and we do not argue with them.” eSafety also suggests saying clearly: if an adult tries to get you to do or talk about sexual things online, that is child sexual abuse, it is against the law, and you will never be in trouble for asking for help.

A child being groomed or extorted will usually hide it, so the signal is behavioural rather than anything you will see in a chat log.

• Secrecy about a device, or hiding the screen when you walk past.
• A new online friend they are unusually enthusiastic about, especially one no real-life friend knows.
• Gifts, game currency, skins or credit arriving from nowhere.
• New accounts you did not know about, or messages on an app you have never heard of.
• Sudden withdrawal, anxiety or distress right after screen time, or panic when a phone buzzes.
• Asking about money, or money and gift cards going missing.

None of these is proof of anything. All of them are a reason to sit down and ask, calmly and without accusation.

• At this age, keep their online contact to people they know in real life. That single rule removes most of the exposure.
• Turn off chat and voice chat in games by default, and check it again after each update — settings get reset.
• Play and watch with them. Being nearby is worth more than any monitoring app, because the point is that they tell you things.
• Keep devices out of bedrooms and bathrooms, where both the risk and the pressure concentrate.
• Lock down who can contact them in each app, and use a passphrase they did not build from the dog’s name.
• Think about your own posting. Public photos of your child are the raw material for an AI-faked image, and school uniforms in the background tell a stranger where they are.
• Praise them, every time, for coming to you. That is the behaviour you are actually training.

• Immediate danger: 000, or police on 131 444.
• Anything involving an under-18 — grooming, sexual extortion, abuse material: accce.gov.au/report (the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, AFP-led).
• Image removal and online abuse: esafety.gov.au/report. eSafety can order the removal of intimate images, including digitally altered and AI-generated ones. Reports can be anonymous.
• Stop an image being uploaded: under 18, takeitdown.ncmec.org; 18 or over, stopncii.org. Neither requires you to send the image anywhere.
• Anonymous tip-off: Crime Stoppers, crimestoppers.com.au or 1800 333 000.
• Counselling: Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 (ages 5–25, 24/7), Lifeline 13 11 14, 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732.

Outside Australia, report to your national child protection authority or police; in the United States that is NCMEC's CyberTipline, and in the United Kingdom, CEOP.

Worth saying plainly, since this page is on a children's website. There is nothing on Mile Coder that any of the above can travel through. No accounts, no sign-up, no chat, no comments, no uploads, no way for one visitor to contact another, and no advertising. Robot Miles is a small program running on your own device with hand-written answers; it is not a live chatbot and it does not keep what a child types. Badge progress stays in that one browser.

The full detail is in our privacy policy, including where we stand on the Children's Online Privacy Code. The version of this page written for children to read with you is Staying safe online for kids. For the four safety rules in a form children can play with, including the printable pledge, see the AI & Code Lab.

What should children never share online?

Their full name, school, suburb or address, phone number, passwords, when they are home alone, and any photo or video of themselves undressed, in underwear, or in a bedroom or bathroom. For a young child the simplest version of the rule is: nothing that tells a stranger who you are or where you are, and no photos of your body.

What is sextortion?

Sextortion, or sexual extortion, is when someone threatens to share an intimate image or video of a person unless that person pays money or sends more images. With children it usually begins as an ordinary friendly chat in a game or messaging app. eSafety advises victims never to pay, because paying leads to more demands rather than fewer.

Can AI really make fake intimate photos from an ordinary photo?

Yes. So-called nudify apps alter an ordinary clothed photo to look as though the person is naked, and the result can be convincing enough to frighten a child into paying or complying. eSafety has taken enforcement action against these services and reports of digitally altered intimate images of children have risen sharply. A threat can be made with a faked image, or with no image at all.

What should I do first if my child is being blackmailed over an image?

Stay calm and tell them they are not in trouble. Do not pay and do not send anything more. Screenshot the threats and the account before blocking, and do not delete the accounts, because that destroys the evidence. Then report it: in Australia, anyone under 18 should report to the ACCCE at accce.gov.au/report, and call 000 if the child is in immediate danger.

Is my child in trouble for having sent an image?

No. A child who has been tricked, pressured or blackmailed into sending an image is the victim of a crime, and Australian police and eSafety treat them that way. Saying so out loud, early, is what makes a child willing to tell you at all.

This page carries no advice of our own invention. It is assembled from the following, and was last checked against them in October 2026. Where they are more current than this page, they win.

• eSafety Commissioner, Dealing with sexual extortion — the four-step response and the “do not pay” advice.
• eSafety Commissioner, Protecting children from sexual abuse online and Talking with 0 to 12 year olds — body safety, the scripts, the body warning signs, and the Australian Child Maltreatment Study figures.
• eSafety Commissioner, Child grooming — grooming tactics and warning signs.
• eSafety Commissioner media releases on enforcement against ‘nudifying’ services.
• Australian Federal Police / ACCCE, accce.gov.au — reporting, and the volume of online child exploitation reports.

Mile Coder is an educational website, not a counselling, legal or child-protection service. If a child is at risk, contact the services listed above.