The recent study by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (‘NSPCC’) provides insights into what parents and carers know about youth online blackmail, what they do to prevent it and how they feel about supporting a child who has been blackmailed. While focused on family experiences, the findings are highly relevant for youth justice practitioners, as online blackmail is increasingly connected to grooming and exploitation, putting children at risk of being wrongly criminalised instead of recognised and protected as victims.
Details
Youth online blackmail refers to threats by an individual to disclose information, images, or videos that a child wants to keep private unless the child complies with that person’s demands. It inherently involves the use of technology. In recent years, private messaging platforms and generative artificial intelligence have heightened the risk of online blackmail, due to end-to-end encryption and the ability to fabricate images.
The study provides a roadmap for the NSPCC on how to build up parents’ and carers’ online blackmail knowledge, confidence and skills. Key findings of the study are summarised below:
- Around 1-in-5 parents and carers knows and has supported a child who has been blackmailed online, while 1-in-10 says that their own child has been blackmailed.
- Most parents and carers feel responsible for protecting their children from online blackmail and are taking active steps to do so.
- Conversations about online blackmail lags behind more general conversations about online safety.
- Parents and carers want their children to start learning about online blackmail early and most thought age 8 to 11 was the best time for children to start learning about the topic.
- Aside from school, parents and carers think their children are learning about online blackmail mainly from social media and peers.
- Parents and carers think we need a collective effort to prevent online blackmail but see themselves, technology companies and law enforcement as most responsible. 1-in-3 thinks governments and technology companies are not effective in preventing online blackmail and feel these entities should be doing more.
- Parents and carers report high knowledge and confidence about online blackmail but when talking to or supporting their child on this topic, they still face some knowledge gaps.
- Parent and carers want access to dedicated, age-appropriate resources about online blackmail, including information about how to support children.
Commentary
Online blackmail is a growing and significant problem for children and young people in the UK and hashas clear implications for youth justice practice. While the NSPCC report focuses on parents and carers, it highlights risks that directly affect how children can be drawn into the criminal justice system. Online blackmail can function as a form of criminal exploitation, where children are coerced into sending further images, complying with escalating demands, or carrying out criminal acts such as transferring money or facilitating offences. These situations often bring vulnerable children to police attention, where their exploitation may be missed and they may be wrongly treated as offenders.
Youth justice practitioners play a crucial role in challenging this. They can help ensure early signs of exploitation are recognised, push for safeguarding rather than punitive responses, and resist inappropriate criminalisation.
Lawyers should be raising any exploitation in a child’s defence or mitigation, ensure NRM referrals are made, and hold agencies to their statutory duties. Youth justice workers can provide contextual information about a child’s vulnerabilities and support diversion wherever possible.
Prevention of online blackmail requires a collective effort and further research is needed to develop adequate tools to combat it.