Snapchat is the most commonly-used social media platform in reported child exploitation and abuse offences, according to new police figures.
In 2024, 122,768 child sexual exploitation offences were recorded – an increase of 7,279, or 6%, on 2023.
Child sexual exploitation and abuse online increased by 26%, with 51,672 crimes recorded – 42% of the total.
Some 11,912 were on Snapchat, followed by Meta-owned WhatsApp and Instagram on 1,870 and 1,705.
Acting Chief Constable Becky Riggs, national lead for child protection and abuse investigation, said social media platforms must do more to report crime and stop underage images being shared.
“I know that these platforms, with the technology that’s out there, could prevent these harms from occurring in the first instance,” she said.
The senior officer said parents should be able to buy their children a phone safe in the knowledge that it will be safe to use, including social platforms.
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The government has said it has no plans to enforce a social media ban on children to keep them safe, but ministers say they’re watching Australia’s ban – which started this week – with interest.
Chief Constable Riggs also stopped short of calling for such a ban.
“We experiment with some of these tech giants ourselves now to say, can we stop this crime from happening in the first place?” she said.
“Because that’s the utopia. Let’s put a hard stop in that prevents it from occurring.”
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White Britons committing most abuse crimes
The police figures also showed that of 122,768 child sexual abuse and exploitation offences recorded in 2024, self-defined ethnicity was recorded for 34% of victims and 34% of perpetrators.
The majority of perpetrators were white British, making up 86.9% of offenders. White British made up 74.4% of the population in the 2021 census.
A separate report was released on group-based child abuse, including grooming gangs.
Within that criteria, Pakistani perpetrators made up 3.94% of offenders, when 2.7% of the population is this ethnicity, while white British made up 78.03% of offenders compared to 74.4% of the population.
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Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood wants offenders’ ethnicities to be recorded in all instances, but police leaders say this will not be possible.
Gareth Edwards, head of the Vulnerability Knowledge and Practice Programme, said: “We’re never going to get to 100% completion rate. Sometimes we won’t know who the suspects are.
“Sometimes victims may not engage, there might be third-party reports… there are different reasons why we won’t always have that data available.
“But I think the ambition for us to improve our quality in that area is what we share collectively.”
A spokesperson for Snapchat said recently: “We work closely with the police, safety experts, and NGOs in an effort to prevent, identify, and remove this activity from our platform and, where appropriate, we report offenders to help secure justice for victims.
“We block teens from showing up in search results unless they have multiple mutual connections and they have to be mutual friends or existing phone contacts before they can communicate directly.
“We also deploy in-app warnings for teens to help prevent unwanted contact from people they may not know. We will keep strengthening our safety tools with the goal of making Snapchat an inhospitable place for people intent on doing harm.”
