Sextortion
In this section:
| 1. What is sextortion |
| 2. What you can do: reporting it to us |
| 3. Reporting it to social media companies if it happened online |
| 4. Help and support |
‘Sextortion' is a type of online blackmail. It's when criminals threaten to share sexual pictures, videos, or information about you unless you pay money or do something else you don’t want to.
Anyone can be a victim of sextortion. However, young people aged between 15 to 17, and adults aged under 30, are often most at risk.
How to recognise sextortion
Criminals often target people through dating apps, social media, webcams, or pornography sites. They may use a fake identity to befriend you online. If a person you’ve just met online chats to you in a sexual way, or asks for sexual images, it might be an attempt at sextortion.
You should be wary if someone you’ve met online:
- is trying to start a relationship with you very quickly (they may even send you a sexual image first)
- chats to you in a sexual way, or asks for sexual images, soon after you've met them.
- has sent friend requests to lots of people, not just you
- repeatedly asks you to do sexual things that you’re not comfortable with
- tells you they’ve hacked your account or have access to your contacts
Sextortion attempts can happen very quickly, or they can happen over a long time. You should never share sexual images or information about yourself if you are not comfortable.
You can still be a victim of sextortion if you haven't shared sexual images or information. Criminals may have hacked one of your accounts, or created edited or fake images or videos, like deepfakes, of you that appear real.
Even if blackmail isn't involved, sharing or threatening to share intimate photos or videos of you without your permission is illegal. This is called 'revenge porn' or intimate image abuse.
Protecting yourself
You should stop engaging with the individual if you feel uncomfortable, or if someone contacts you online who you don't know.
You can also review your privacy settings. Criminals are less likely to target you if they can’t see who your friends and family are.
Report it
If you are a victim of sextortion, or you are worried you are being targeted, it's never your fault, you are not to blame and have done nothing wrong.
We understand that it might be difficult to report this type of crime to us, but there's help available and we're here to listen and support you in any way we can.