According to NSPCC research nearly one in 10 UK parents say their child has been blackmailed online, with harms ranging from threatening to release intimate pictures to revealing details about someone’s personal life.
The National Crime Agency has said that it is receiving more than 110 reports a month of child sextortion attempts, where criminal gangs trick teenagers into sending intimate pictures of themselves and then blackmail them.
Online blackmailing may start as a row between kids at school which spills over into verbal threats, bullying or other forms of abuse. This escalation can result in demands being made on the target to do something to satisfy the person or persons who carry out the attacks.
Other perpetrators can be paedofiles or criminal gangs.
Children can also be pursuaded to keep the abuse secret following threats to attack other family members or to hurt the target even more.
Monitoring communications can be useful to become aware of such threats and discuss them with the child or engage with the Cyber Choices team in your area. This police service was established deal with such perpetrators of these crimes.
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