A number of UK agencies involved in fighting terrorism have issued a warning to parents that their children could be vulnerable to being influenced online during the summer holidays.
For the first time, Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP), MI5, and the National Crime Agency (NCA) have issued a joint statement calling for greater vigilance.
It is encouraging parents to discuss online safety with their children, alongside things like putting parental controls on devices and routers.
The groups said they are increasingly seeing children “being routinely exposed to the most serious harmful online content”.
The groups said some of the most extreme content children were being exposed to includes “sexual violence; self-harm and suicide content; extreme gore; animal cruelty; indecent images of children; and terrorist content”.
In its statement, the groups said some of the children who come to the attention of the CTP and the NCA are “completely desensitised to extreme and obscene content”.
Vicki Evans, counter terrorism policing’s senior national coordinator for Prevent, said that dealing with safety online in “the ever-developing digital world it can feel like an uphill battle”.
“We want parents to empower their children to know what to do if they come across inappropriate content online,” she said.
The National Crime Agency’s Alexander Murray said that there is a “fast-growing threat from sadistic and violent online gangs, made up predominantly of teenage boys” – something which had been identified in its recent threat assessment.
He said these groups are committed to “inflicting harm and committing a range of criminality which includes fraud, cyber, child sexual abuse, violence and extremism/terror related offences”.
The prevalence of younger offenders has been seen as part of a trend, with MI5 saying 2023 saw the highest number of arrests for young people since records began – with 42 of the 219 people investigated for terrorism being 17 or under.
In 2024, 39 young people were investigated for terrorism-related offences.
MI5’s Director General, Sir Ken McCallum said the trend was “deeply concerning” and: “In a few short clicks, young people can be speaking to dangerous radicalising terrorists online, consuming violent and extremist content.”
