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Table 2
Victims of police-reported online sexual offences against children, by type of offence and victim characteristics, Canada, 2014 to 2020

Table 2
Victims of police-reported online sexual offences against children, by type of offence and victim characteristics, Canada, 2014 to 2020
Table summary
This table displays the results of Victims of police-reported online sexual offences against children. The information is grouped by Victim characteristics (appearing as row headers), Luring a child, Non-consensual distribution of intimate images, Invitation to sexual touching, Other sexual offences against children and Total online sexual offences against children, calculated using number and percent units of measure (appearing as column headers).
Victim characteristics	Luring a child		Non-consensual distribution of intimate images^{Table 2 Note 1}		Invitation to sexual touching		Other sexual offences against children^{Table 2 Note 2}		Total online sexual offences against children^{Table 2 Note 3}
Victim characteristics	number	percent	number	percent	number	percent	number	percent	number	percent
Children (aged 11 years and younger)	998	17	27	2	66	16	91	21	1,182	15
Girls	844	15	16	1	59	15	62	14	981	13
Boys	154	3	11	1	7	2	29	7	201	3
Youth (aged 12 to 17 years)	4,730	83	1,148	98	339	84	344	79	6,561	85
Girls	4,091	71	1,016	86	291	72	280	64	5,678	73
Boys	639	11	132	11	48	12	64	15	883	11
Total	5,728	100	1,175	100	405	100	435	100	7,743	100
Note 1 Non-consensual distribution of intimate images became an offence in 2015 under the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act. Return to note 1 referrer Note 2 The category “other sexual offences against children” is a catch all category that encompasses all sexual violations against children (excluding child pornography) which were facilitated by or involved the use of technology. Return to note 2 referrer Note 3 Includes sexual violations against children and other sexual offences where a victim was identified as being a person younger than 18. Return to note 3 referrer Note: An incident is considered to be an online incident if it was flagged as a cybercrime. An incident is flagged as a cybercrime when the crime targets information and communication technology (ICT), or when the crime used ICT to commit the offence. ICT includes, but is not limited to, the internet, computers, servers, digital technology, digital telecommunications devices, phones and networks. Crimes committed over text and through messages using social media platforms are also considered cybercrime activity. Calculations are based on victim records, where the most serious violation against the victim was identified as the cyber violation. Victims where the gender or the age was unknown are excluded. Given that small counts of victims identified as “gender diverse” may exist, the UCR data available to the public has been recoded to assign these counts to either “female” or “male” in order to ensure the protection of confidentiality and privacy. Victims identified as gender diverse have been assigned to either female or male based on the regional distribution of victims' gender. Percentages may not total 100% due to rounding. For the years 2014 and 2015, the municipal police services of Saint John, Québec and Calgary, and the Ontario Provincial Police were excluded. For the year 2016, the municipal police services of Saint John and Calgary, and the Ontario Provincial Police were excluded. For the year 2017, the municipal police service of Saint John and the Ontario Provincial Police were excluded. For the years 2018 to 2020, the municipal police service of Saint John was excluded. Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics, Uniform Crime Reporting Survey.

Date modified:: 2022-05-12