OpenAI child exploitation reports sharply increased this year

OpenAI 80 cents According to a report of child exploitation incidents reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children during the first half of 2025, there were several times more reports than during a similar period in 2024, according to a report. recent update of society. NCMEC’s ​​CyberTipline is a congressionally authorized clearinghouse for reporting child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) and other forms of child exploitation.

Companies are required by law to declare apparent exploitation of children at the CyberTipline. When a company submits a report, NCMEC reviews it and then forwards it to the appropriate law enforcement agency for investigation.

Statistics related to NCMEC reports can be nuanced. Increased reporting can sometimes indicate changes in a platform’s automated moderation or the criteria it uses to decide whether reporting is necessary, rather than necessarily indicating an increase in harmful activity.

Additionally, the same content item can be the subject of multiple reports, and a single report can cover multiple content items. Some platforms, including OpenAI, disclose the number of reports and the total number of affected content for a more complete picture.

OpenAI spokesperson Gaby Raila said in a statement that the company made investments towards the end of 2024 “to increase [its] ability to review and act on reports to keep pace with current and future user growth. Raila also said the time frame corresponds to “the introduction of more product surfaces enabling image uploads and the growing popularity of our products, which has contributed to the increase in reporting.” In August, Nick Turley, vice president and head of ChatGPT, announcement that the app had four times more weekly active users than the previous year.

During the first half of 2025, the number of CyberTipline reports sent by OpenAI was roughly the same as the amount of content OpenAI reported on: 75,027 versus 74,559. During the first half of 2024, 947 CyberTipline reports were sent covering 3,252 pieces of content. Both the number of reports and the content elements of the reports saw a marked increase between the two periods.

Content, in this context, can mean several things. OpenAI said it reports all instances of CSAM, including uploads and requests, to NCMEC. In addition to its ChatGPT application, which allows users to upload files, including images, and generate text and images in response, OpenAI also offers access to its models via API access. NCMEC’s ​​most recent count would not include any reports related to Sora video generation appbecause its release in September took place after the period covered by the update.

The increase in reporting follows a similar pattern to what NCMEC observed more broadly during CyberTipline with the rise of generative AI. The center analysis of all CyberTipline data found that reports involving generative AI saw a 1,325% increase between 2023 and 2024. NCMEC has yet to release data for 2025, and while other major AI labs like Google publish statistics on the NCMEC reports they have written, they do not specify what percentage of these reports are AI-related.