Sextortion

Sextortion

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Sextortion in Scotland

Sextortion is a type of online blackmail.

Adult criminals, often from overseas organised crime groups, will threaten to share nude or semi-nude images and/or videos of a young person, unless they pay them or carry out some other demand. 

Sextortion may be from

  • sexual / indecent images that have been sent to somebody through contact online, where often the criminal has pretended to be a fellow young person
  • images that have been stolen, taken through hacking, or have been faked using AI generators or other image altering technology

The criminal might demand money, gift cards or Bitcoin. They might try to force the person to do something they don’t want to do, like give them use of their bank account or provide more sexual images or videos.

Children and young people of all ages, genders and sexualities are being targeted worldwide. Including in Scotland.

Learn more:


Adults can be victims too. If you’re over 18 and have been affected by this topic, you can learn more and get help: Sextortion awareness campaign - Revenge Porn Helpline | Revenge Porn Helpline


Do you look after a young person?

Click on the tabs below to learn more about keeping your young person safe.

This information is relevant to professionals working with young people too.

Talking openly with the young person you look after about sextortion and other online harms helps to build trust and makes them more likely to come to you for help if something happens to them online. Here are some tips:

 Chat regularly. 

Make conversations about your online activity part of daily conversations. Share funny videos or news items and encourage them to. If they’re into gaming, you could ask them to show you how to and let you try it out. This will help them to become comfortable sharing their online world with you.

Explore relationships within an online context.

Exploring your sexual feelings and relationships is a natural part of growing up. That can now often include experiences online. There’s lots of great information available for you to read like #AskTheAwkward - help to talk with your children about online relationships (ceopeducation.co.uk) and Online Behaviour & Safety | Parent Club

Remind them that they have people in their lives that love them & they can turn to.

No judgement, nothing is too embarrassing. Only love and support. Always.

Suggest other trusted adults or sources of help they could go to if ever they felt they couldn’t talk to you. This might be another family member, teacher, youth worker or Childline | Childline

Reassure them that they won’t get into trouble.

Whilst it’s illegal to send, share and receive nude images of someone under 18, if they’ve been coerced, threatened, pressured or tricked into doing it – like in a sextortion case – they will not face any charges or blame. They are a victim and Police Scotland will treat them in that way.

You don’t need to be a cyber expert. 

Show your young person that even if you don’t know the answers, together, you’ll help find them. Learn about sextortion with them – ask them for their experiences, opinions and thoughts. You could start by sharing our social media posts with them.

Help them to review their privacy settings and consider changing your own - if criminals can’t see who their friends and family are, they’re less likely to be able to make threats to share images or information. UK Safer Internet Centre has a guide for parents and carers Improve your Privacy Online - Advice for parents and professionals - UK Safer Internet Centre

Learn how to prevent social media accounts from being hacked here

Learn how to spot phishing emails and how to protect yourself here.

The person blackmailing your young person will use very sophisticated ways to manipulate them into engaging with them.

It’s important to share the signs for them to look out for. 

These include:

  • They’re moving too fast. They try to develop a relationship with them very quickly. They might be flirty, tell them they like them, or ask for sexual / indecent images and videos. Some may even send a sexual / indecent image to them first to build their trust.
  • They pressure them to do things they’re not comfortable with. They may repeatedly ask them to do sexual things they don’t feel comfortable with.
  • They might tell them they’ve hacked their account or that they have access to their contacts. Some blackmailers might tell them they’ve got nude/semi-nude images or videos from their device. They might threaten to share this information unless money is given to them.

Encourage young people to stop talking to someone that makes them feel uncomfortable, block them and seek advice from a trusted adult immediately.

Reassure them that they’ve done the right thing by telling you. 

It’s understandable to be shocked and upset about what’s happened but it’s important to not show these reactions to your young person. Consider how hard it must have been for them to have come to you and that they may be full of shame and fear - thank them for trusting you. 

Don’t blame them.

The person blackmailing your young person will often be part of an organised crime gang and will have used very sophisticated ways to have manipulated them into engaging with them.

Do not pay or do what they are demanding

Some victims who have paid or complied hear no more about it, others pay and are pressured for more money. In some cases, even when money is paid the criminals share the videos or images anyway. 

Do not talk any further to the criminals 

Don’t try to reason with them or talk to them. Encourage your young person to put their phone down and not read their highly manipulative, threatening messages. Block the criminal as soon as possible on all social media platforms.

Account Settings

Support your young person to lockdown their privacy settings across all social media platforms – turn them to private so only the people they choose can see what they post.

Change the passwords to all accounts and emails.

Help them to turn their location settings on Snapchat and all other platforms off so nobody can see where they are.

Encourage them to go through their friends/followers – they should try to remove everyone they don’t know face to face (where you live or through family connections) and trust.

Don’t delete any messages or their profile – read more about the next steps below.

Help them to consider what positive action they could take.

Whilst it’s understandable to want to take over – and some young people may want you to - it’s important that they feel in control of their next steps and that they’re not forced to do anything they don’t feel ready to do.

The following are options available for the young person:

Evidence gathering

Even if they’ve not agreed to report it to the Police at this point, gathering evidence allows this to be an option available to them if/when they are ready. 

Don’t delete anything that could be used as evidence – this includes the social media account (just ensure they’ve fully locked down their privacy settings as outlined above)

If you feel safe to do so, take screen shots of any communication and the offender’s profile information and keep it as evidence in case they decide to cover their tracks.

Report the incident 

Report it to Police Scotland by calling 101 or report it to CEOP 

This will be treated confidentially and sensitively by Police. 

Reporting this crime to the Police gives them the opportunity to investigate and report to the Procurator Fiscal. The criminal blackmailing your young person, may have also targeted other people and it allows Police to link the crimes together to build a strong case and try to prevent others from being harmed in the same way.

You/your child should also report it to each of the social media platform where they had contact with the criminal. 

Use the Report Remove Tool 

If your child is under 18 you can help them to use Report Remove | Childline and confidentially report sexual images and videos of themselves in order to have them removed from the internet. Or they can do it without your help by following the guide. They won’t need to talk to anyone about it, simply complete and upload each part of the online form.

If your child is now over 18, they can go to Stop NCII (Non-Consensual Intimate Image Abuse) and report it using a free tool which helps to detect and remove intimate images from being shared online.

Work with young people?

You may be aware that there has been a rise in reports of sextortion cases recently. 

Here are ways that you can empower young people to know more, make safe choices and seek help when needed:

You’re already part way there!

You can use the Useful Links section to learn more.

It can be easy when talking about nude image sharing to lean hard on it being illegal to send or receive nude images under 18 but this can make young people hesitant to speak up if they are victim of sextortion or another form of intimate image abuse. 

If you are talking about the Law, please consider adding that even if they do send images under the age of 18, it’s not ok for those images to be used to blackmail or control them and that there is non-judgement support available to them.

Whilst it’s illegal to send, share and receive nude images of someone under 18, if they’ve been tricked, threatened or pressured into doing it– like in a sextortion case – they will not face charges or blame. 

Follow us on social media 

X and Insta: @Fearless_Scot 

and share our content on your setting’s social media platforms.

Request a partner campaign toolkit and receive all our digital assets for use on your own social media platforms or website.

Did you know that the National Crime Agency issued an alert in April to all education settings in Scotland? You can download the alert and the template letter to send to parents and carers: Financially motivated sexual extortion: NCA alert (ceopeducation.co.uk)

It can be difficult to know where to begin in sharing this topic with young people but there are excellent resources available to help you.

CEOP – part of the National Crime Agency

Register for a free CEOP Education account Register for an account (ceopeducation.co.uk) for guidance, resources and training.

Online blackmail education resource for 15-18 year olds (ceopeducation.co.uk)

#AskTheAwkward - help to talk with your children about online relationships (ceopeducation.co.uk)

I Am Me Scotland 

‘You Are Not Alone’ – is a suite of resources produced by I Am Me Scotland to raise awareness of exploitation. There is an online lesson that incorporates facts from real life incidents as the basis for five short case studies, viewed from the young person’s perspective and describing a form of exploitation happening in their lives. It provides an opportunity to discuss and reflect on learning, followed by possible outcomes to each story, including a sextortion case study ‘Darren’s Story’.

There is also a Practitioner Training on exploitation reinforcing the message that it is everyone’s responsibility to keep our children and young people safe. 

You can access these resources by signing into their Learning Platform: I Am Me Scotland Learning Platform (iammescotlandeducation.org.uk)

Police Scotland – reach out to your local Campus/School Link Officer for more information on how they could support you.

Sextortion can be a very frightening, distressing experience.

When discussing sextortion with young people, remember to include signposts to mental health organisations such as Childline | Childline or use the material created by SAMH samh.org.uk/get-involved/going-to-be/information-help/children-and-young-people

PAPYRUS Prevention of Young Suicide

PAPYRUS Prevention of Young Suicide is the UK charity dedicated to the prevention of suicide and the promotion of positive mental health and emotional wellbeing in young people. Suicide is the biggest killer of people aged 35 and under in the UK. PAPYRUS believes that many suicides are preventable. To learn more, please visit: www.papyrus-uk.org 

HOPELINE247

HOPELINE247 is a 24-hour suicide prevention helpline provided by PAPYRUS Prevention of Young Suicide. HOPELINE247 is staffed by trained suicide prevention advisers, who work with young people – and anybody concerned for a young person – to help keep them safe from suicide. HOPELINE247 is a free and confidential call, text, and email service, which is available 24 hours a day, every day of the year (weekends and bank holidays included).

Call: 0800 068 4141

Text: 88247

Email: pat@papyrus-uk.org

Follow your setting/local authority safeguarding procedures and ensure all concerns or disclosures are reported to Police Scotland.

Victim of crime?

Victim of crime?

Because of our promise of anonymity, at Fearless we cannot take, respond to or pass on information from victims of the crime. 

If you’re not the victim, you can use our anonymous service to tell us who is responsible for extorting, exploiting or blackmailing someone.  The more detail you have on the person committing crime and what they do will better help any investigation.

To report being a victim of sextortion, or if you are concerned about someone – please contact Police Scotland on 101. In an emergency ALWAYS call 999.

Supported by The Scottish Government