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UK Laws

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Child Protection

Laws That Protect Your Child from Sexual Predators in Cyberspace

In the United Kingdom it’s illegal, online and offline, to:

- entice or coerce a child under 16 to engage in sexually explicit conduct
- import or transport obscenity using telecommunications public networks (but, interestingly, not exporting it to the U.K. from outside the UK)
- knowingly receive child pornography
- advertise child pornography
- depict minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct (even in pseudo-form)
- depict someone engaged in sexually explicit conduct who appears to be a child
- advertise or promote sexually explicit conduct by giving the impression that minors are engaged in sexually explicit conduct

Pseudo-photographs, those images which appear to be photographs whether made by computer-graphics or otherwise, are also covered under the child pornography laws.

The law also protects children against luring or attempts to lure them into an offline meeting for the purposes of performing illegal sexual acts, or coercing them to provide sexually explicit photos of themselves.

This is one of the biggest problems with sexual predators online. While online sexual predators may ultimately want to meet your child face-to-face, in the meantime they often coerce a child into taking and sending to them sexually explicit photos of themselves. (When cyber predators coerce or seduce a child into taking sexually provocative pictures of themselves, they violate the law.)

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UK Laws

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Child Protection

Laws That Protect Your Child from Sexual Predators in Cyberspace