Webinar Recap: Launch of the 2025 Annual Report

Each year, the INHOPE Annual Report collects data from our worldwide network of hotlines. In 2025, we gathered insights from 57 hotlines across 52 countries, working together to combat CSAM. As our network continues to grow, the impact of this collaboration becomes increasingly clear, with this year's figures revealing both the mounting scale of the challenge and the vital importance of a coordinated global response.

• 4,781,125 records of suspected CSAM were exchanged through ICCAM in 2025 - a 450% increase compared to 2024.
• 67% of exchanged content was confirmed as illegal, with 28% classified as new content requiring analyst review.
• 94% of victims depicted are prepubescent, with 98% being female.
• CSAM was traced to 86 countries.
• Forums remain the most prevalent hosting type at 62%, followed by websites (22%) and image hosts (14%), with forums proving particularly difficult to remove due to their ability to rapidly migrate across jurisdictions.
• Countries with the highest hosting include the Netherlands (43%), Romania (11%), and the US (9%).
• Response times of 1.4 days within the INHOPE network, compared to up to 41 days outside it, underscoring the critical value of the hotline model.

1. Evolving distribution and hosting evasion: operators are increasingly archiving and relaunching content under new jurisdictions and hosts immediately following takedowns, making removal more complex.
2. Growth in sexual extortion and technology-facilitated exploitation: AI tools are now being used to target children at scale, moving beyond one-on-one contact to mass engagement.
   3. Rise in AI-generated and synthetic imagery: volumes have grown from the hundreds to the thousands, with detection becoming increasingly difficult.
3. Streaming, mobile, and non-permanent content: the shift towards content that disappears or changes location makes issuing takedowns and safeguarding victims significantly harder.
4. Obfuscation techniques: including expiring URLs and referrer-based access, making it difficult to reproduce or act on reported content.
5. Increased severity and diversification of content: analysts are seeing younger children subjected to more severe abuse.

The difference in removal times - 1.4 days within the network versus up to 41 days outside it - makes the case for continued network expansion more clearly than any other single statistic.

1. Welcomed three new hotlines: a second hotline in the Netherlands, YOCUPA in Zambia, and Andorra Digital.
2. Completed the first major ICCAM platform migration in a decade, building a more scalable, community-driven system capable of handling growing report volumes.
3. Delivered four new training modules covering ICCAM, Report Box, Report Box 2.0, and analyst wellbeing - with 59 analysts completing core training and 21 achieving certification.
4. Conducted 7 peer-to-peer exchange visits across 13 hotlines in Europe.
5. 11 INHOPE members were appointed Trusted Flaggers under the EU Digital Services Act.

As INHOPE moves into 2026, the organisation's primary strategic focus is standardisation for efficiency, ensuring that hotlines, law enforcement, and industry partners can work from a common foundation. Key priorities include:

• Advancing technology projects including the Universal Classifcation Schema, and CPORT.
• Developing an automated industry reporting model for CSAM, removing technical complexity as a barrier for platforms of all sizes.
• Continued network expansion, particularly into underserved regions in Africa, Latin America, and the Indo-Pacific.

"The scale cannot be solved with people and technology alone. It's only with joint work between all stakeholders, working together as a network and working across sectors." - Kalina Zografska, Head of Technology and Innovation

INHOPE's work would not be possible without the support of its funding partners and the wider community of organisations committed to child online protection. The 220 analysts working daily across the network carry out work of extraordinary difficulty, and INHOPE remains committed to ensuring they are supported through wellbeing programmes, peer networks, and regular training.

The Annual Report 2025 was funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency.