👮 Police have identified 600 children through new AI method against sexual abuse

• The Swedish police have established a national team that focuses on identifying children who have been subjected to documented sexual abuse.
• With the help of a new analysis program with AI functions and an Interpol database, 600 Swedish children have been identified in images and videos online during 2025.
• The new method allows police to filter and sort material more efficiently, which improves the ability to find both victims and perpetrators.

National team improves identification work

In 2025, the police have implemented a new method to identify children who are subjected to documented sexual abuse. A national team with employees from all police regions has been assembled with a special focus on this work. The implementation has already yielded concrete results.

More efficient filtering with new technology

The new working method combines a specially developed analysis program with AI functions and a database from Interpol. Through this system, the police have been able to identify 600 Swedish children in images and videos online during the year.

"Historically, we've had to look at image by image and try to find the children and what they have been subjected to. There are so many files that we've felt a need to structure things up," explains Louise Åhlén, operational developer at the police's national operational department Noa.

The new system allows the police to go directly into relevant files and filter out less important material. This makes the work significantly more efficient compared to previous methods.

Teamwork in all regions

An important part of the new strategy is that there are now specialized teams in each police region.

"If there's a child being abused on a social media platform right now, we have teams in each region who are specialized in finding those children and who they've been abused by. So we work both with the software and with the people we need to connect with," says Åhlén.

Despite the analysis program automating parts of the filtering process, the police's active work and assessments are still required. They need to "put the puzzle together" and look for details that can reveal where the child is located, not just the abuse itself.

Identifying the children in the images is crucial for the perpetrators to be caught. As Åhlén puts it: "If we find the children, we usually find the perpetrator."

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