The United Kingdom has established itself as the initial nation to adopt restrictive measures against AI technologies used in creating and spreading child sexual abuse images. Interior Minister Yvette Cooper declared in February 2025 that the new law would punish the generation or distribution or possession of AI tools that create sexual images of children leading to sentences of up to five years in prison. The crime of possessing AI “paedophile manuals” mandates three years imprisonment under new British national laws.
The government took this decision after detecting increasing problems related to how children are being exploited through AI technology. The disturbing nature of AI was how Cooper explained its role in intensifying online child sexual abuse through image manipulation and child grooming and victim blackmail activities. She expressed this statement about child sexual exploitation in her Sky News interview on February 2, 2025.
The new legislation aims to punish those running websites trading child sexual material and sharing grooming information through prison sentences lasting ten years. Cooper expressed the need for immediate action through a recent report about 500,000 abused UK children each year whose numbers continue to increase due to online abuse. 
In 2024 a solitary dark web site enabled the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) to uncover 3,512 instances of artificially generated child abuse media within thirty days. Through its Crime and Policing Bill the government implements this new legislation to fight criminal tendencies that are starting to become international. According to Cooper the world needs to implement this procedure because no other nations have taken this step yet but he believes others should follow suit.
