On September 10, the Australian Federal Police announced the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation received 100,194 reports of online child sexual exploitation in 2025–26. That is about 275 a day – a 21% rise over the year before, and up from 36,600 four years ago.
Read as a measure of how much abuse Australian children are suffering, the figure is alarming. But it’s not an accurate measure. It’s primarily the count of reports made by companies who chose to look for harm occurring on their platforms. This figure is a floor for the harm occurring online.
