Sextortion

Sextortion, also known as ‘financially motivated sexual extortion’, is a form of online blackmail.

Criminals will threaten to or will share explicit images or videos of a victim, unless they agree to either pay a sum of money, or force the victim to do something they do not want to do.

Anyone can be a victim of sextortion and the advice to anyone who may be experiencing sextortion is to:

• Don’t panic
• Don’t pay
• Get help 
• Report It

Sextortion can have a shattering effect on a victim, causing severe distress, embarrassment, intimidation and fear, and may lead to a victim to consider drastic devastating action.

Protect yourself

Criminals often target people through dating apps, social media, webcams or pornography sites.

They may use fake ID to befriend you online, to build that trust, before requesting sexual images or videos.

Sextortion attempts can happen very quickly.

 Make sure you:

• Review your privacy settings so that criminals cannot see who your friends and family are and limit personal information.
• End the chat quickly if they make you feel uncomfortable.
• If you are concerned, report it:
  • Contact the police on 101
  • If you are under 18. contact Child Exploitation and Online Protection.

If you know someone who is exploiting someone, tell us what you know and remain anonymous. Call 0800 555 111 or fill in our online form:

Give information anonymously

What is the difference between sextortion and revenge porn?

Although revenge porn is considered a form of sextortion, it is its own separate crime – not all sextortion is revenge porn.

Sextortion

Sextortion is not necessarily about revenge. Content could be shared, or threats made to share, as a way of financial extortion or blackmail. Criminals may use fake images to create the impression of it being the person they are blackmailing, or may use a real image the victim has consented to being taken.  

Revenge porn

Revenge porn is when someone shares, or threatens to share private, sexual images or videos of another person without their consent. Often these images have been taken by or shared with someone who the victim trusted and was assured they would not act maliciously. Sharing of such images without the victim's consent is a criminal offence and those sharing these images without consent can be prosecuted.

This crime, often carried out to cause embarrassment or distress, can take place online or offline – often with the aim of getting revenge on a partner after a break-up.

Look at revenge porn online for more information.

Sextortion and young people

Young people are often the victims of this crime - and sometimes the perpetrators.

Our youth service, Fearless, has run campaigns in Scotland tackling sextortion:

Find out more

• If you're a young person:

Get information that's been created just for you

• If you're an adult who looks after or works with young people:

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21 February 2025