The US and the UK have pledged to prevent the rise of child sexual abuse images generated by artificial intelligence (AI) programmes.

According to the UK government, some AI technologies provide offenders with the ability to carry out a process called ‘inpainting’, whereby on a standard image they can digitally remove articles of clothing completely or swap someone’s face into indecent images of real children.

In a joint statement, the two countries promised to find solutions to halt the spread of these images and requested that other countries join them.

The announcement follows a visit by home secretary Suella Braverman to Washington, where she met with US homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

The UK government said she also visited the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), the US-based child protection organisation whose work includes reporting online child sexual abuse cases to global law enforcement agencies.

The UK government said that around 800 sexual predators are arrested by UK law enforcement agencies every month, while 1,200 children are safeguarded from child sexual abuse following information provided by social media companies.

Commenting on the news Braverman said: “Child sexual abuse is a truly abhorrent crime and one of the challenges of our age. Its proliferation online does not respect borders and must be combatted across the globe.”

She added: “It is therefore vital we work hand-in-glove with our close partners in the US to tackle it. I commend the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), who work tirelessly to keep children safe around the world. Social media companies must take responsibility and prioritise child safety on their platforms.”

Earlier this year, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) called on the prime minister to prioritise the threat of AI-generated child sexual abuse after it found “astoundingly realistic” images of children online.

It said that some examples were so realistic that they would be indistinguishable from real imagery to most people.

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