A third of P.E.I. RCMP online child abuse cases now involve AI-generated material, police say

RCMP on Prince Edward Island say there has been a "notable increase" in child sexual abuse material made with artificial intelligence, CBC News reports. In an email, P.E.I. RCMP senior communications adviser Scott Ferris said it is a "safe estimate" that one third of Island RCMP online child abuse investigations now involve AI-generated material. The estimate covers only areas under RCMP jurisdiction, which excludes Charlottetown, Summerside and Kensington.

Mauranne Ste-Marie, senior research analyst with the national RCMP's sensitive and specialized investigative services unit, told CBC that offenders often use AI to create material of a child in their family or neighbourhood. "It increases the demand for the material, it normalizes the abuse," she said. According to CBC, mainstream models such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude have safeguards designed to block such content, so offenders often turn to freely available open-source software run offline, where it is far harder for police to detect.

Summerside police reported at least one case this year in which a suspect used AI-generated abuse material in a sextortion attempt. In St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, a 17-year-old was charged this summer with 58 counts related to allegedly using AI tools to make explicit images of 19 minors, which the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary called probably one of its first such cases.