Surge in children live streaming sparks fears of online grooming

THE number of children live streaming themselves has almost doubled in a year, a new study has found amid rising concern over online grooming.

Internet Matters, a parental advice organisation, found an 89 per cent rise since last year in five to 16-year-olds broadcasting on social media sites.

Child abuse watchdogs have reported steep rises in the “self-generated” abuse material, on live video streams that are difficult to police.

Internet Matters also found more children were seeing suicide and selfharm material as successive lockdowns had forced them to live more of their life on the internet.

A survey of 2,000 parents by the notfor-profit forum found children are now spending on average almost three hours a day online, a rise of 32 per cent on the 2.2 hours in January last year.

It also found that the percentage of children live streaming themselves has doubled from 9 per cent to 17. This coincided with 40 per cent of children saying they watch live streams, compared to 28 per cent last year.

The Internet Watch Foundation has seen a huge rise in self-generated images by children over the last year, now making up almost half of the material it deletes.

The images often come from groomers luring children onto live video streams where they can be photographed without their knowledge.

Internet Matters warned parents that although live streams were popular with young children keen to emulate their “influencer” heroes, it increased the risk of them speaking to strangers.

Dr Linda Papadopoulos, for Internet Matters, said: “As children have come to rely on technology more than ever during the pandemic, it also gives them increased exposure to all the risks.”

Carolyn Bunting, chief executive of Internet Matters, added: “This report brings up the need for more support for parents as they battle to keep on top of a rapid change in the pace of technology.”

Parents also reported a 42 per cent increase in viewing content promoting self-harm or suicide and a 39 per cent increase in sharing sexual images.