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70 Million Warnings Sent Over Attempts to Access Child Abuse Material
Project Intercept, a partnership between the Lucy Faithfull Foundation and technology companies including Google, TikTok and Meta, has sent more than 70 million warning messages over the past two years. Nearly 700,000 people accessed support resources after the alerts. The initiative operates in 131 countries across end-to-end encrypted services and AI chatbots.
May 13, 9:18 AM·1m read6 sources
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More than 70 million warning messages have been sent to people attempting to access child sexual abuse material over the past two years, according to the Lucy Faithfull Foundation. The alerts are part of Project Intercept, a partnership with technology firms including Google, TikTok, Meta and Mega.
Instead of blocking content, the messages highlight the illegality of viewing such material and direct users toward support services.
Project Intercept operates in 131 countries and functions across end-to-end encrypted services and AI chatbot platforms. The foundation reported that nearly 700,000 people accessed its Stop It Now resources after receiving the warnings. An average of 28,000 users a month were redirected in 2024 and 2025.
More than four in five people who accessed the support material continued to interact with the content.
The Lucy Faithfull Foundation did not release data on longer-term behaviour change or the number of individual users behind the searches. Griffin Hunt, a product manager at Google Search, said changes made in early 2025 had led to greater engagement with therapeutic help services and fewer follow-up searches for illegal material.
The companies involved described the warnings as complementing existing moderation systems.
Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, said warning messages form part of its expectations under the Online Safety Act. Almudena Lara, Child Protection Policy Director at Ofcom, said the data highlighted both progress and the scale of the problem that still needs to be addressed.
