Understanding online child exploitation.
Online child sexual exploitation (OCSE) is abuse committed, enabled, or shared through the internet. Understanding it starts with clear language — so parents, educators, media, and the public can recognize the harms and talk about them accurately.
Content note: this page contains no graphic detail or imagery.
Grooming & enticement
A process in which a person builds access, trust, secrecy, dependency or compliance to facilitate sexual abuse or exploitation — online, offline, or both.
Read moreLuring
A specific Criminal Code offence: communication by telecommunication with a child (or someone believed to be a child) to facilitate a sexual offence.
Read moreSextortion
Blackmail using a real, altered or fabricated intimate image — threatening to share it unless the victim provides money, more content, or other demands.
Read moreChild sexual abuse & exploitation material (CSAEM)
The current Canadian federal term for material defined in the Criminal Code — evidence and a record of abuse, not entertainment or consensual adult content.
Read moreAI-generated & AI-altered CSAEM
Sexualized material created, transformed or assisted by AI — deepfakes, face swaps, nudification, image alteration and wholly synthetic depictions.
Read moreOne case can involve all five.
These categories describe different features of exploitation and are not mutually exclusive labels.
- Grooming and enticement describe a manipulative process used to gain access, trust, secrecy or compliance.
- Luring is a Canadian criminal-law category concerning telecommunications used to facilitate specified sexual offences.
- Sextortion is a coercive method that uses threats involving sexual or intimate content.
- CSAEM is a category of prohibited material and related offending — its creation, distribution, possession or access.
- AI describes a production or alteration method that may be used within any of the others.
For example, a person may groom a youth through a game, communicate in ways relevant to luring, obtain or fabricate an intimate image, use it for sextortion, and then distribute material that may constitute CSAEM. You should never have to decide which label is legally correct before seeking help.
Growing, and under-reported.
- NCMEC referrals to Canada rose from 36,908 (2019) to 112,174 (2023) and 101,874 (2024).
- 2023–2024: +192% online enticement, +55% child sex trafficking reports, +1,325% AI-generated CSAEM. (NCMEC)
- An Ontario child online from age 11 has an estimated 41% chance of being solicited by age 15. (OCSEIA estimate, 2024 Childlight study — a modelled projection.)
Three pressures at once.
Incidents are rising faster than the units that investigate them; each case takes more steps as legal requirements evolve; and the specialized tools and training needed have grown far more expensive. Together, these mean fewer cases can be resolved unless the response is coordinated and well-resourced.
Rising volume
More incidents than investigators can reach.
Evolving law
More steps required to resolve each case.
Rising cost
Essential forensic tools and training keep climbing.
A single team against boundless crime.
The Provincial Strategy — established in 2006 — coordinates police services across Ontario, standardizes investigations, and funds positions, training, and digital forensics, letting member agencies act as one team. OCSEIA is its proud and primary private supporter.
These pages provide general public information, not legal advice. Criminal liability depends on the facts, evidence and current law. Statistics reflect reports received by particular systems and do not measure the full prevalence of online child sexual exploitation. This is an interim, evidence-informed draft; the full research review is continuing. Last reviewed: [add date].