Table 1
Police-reported online child sexual exploitation incidents, by type of offence and year, Canada, 2014 to 2023

Table 1
Police-reported online child sexual exploitation incidents, by type of offence and year, Canada, 2014 to 2023
Table summary
This table displays the results of Police-reported online child sexual exploitation incidents, by type of offence and year, Canada, 2014 to 2023. The information is grouped by Year (appearing as row headers), Total online sexual offences against children, Luring a child, Online sexual offences against children1, Invitation to sexual touching, Other online sexual offences against children5, Non-consensual distribution of intimate images4, Total online child pornography, Online child pornography2, Total online child sexual exploitation3, Possessing or accessing child pornography and Making or distributing child pornography, calculated using number units of measure (appearing as column headers).
Year Total online child sexual exploitation Table 1 Note 3 Online sexual offences against children Table 1 Note 1 Online child pornography Table 1 Note 2
Total online sexual offences against children Luring a child Non-consensual distribution of intimate images Table 1 Note 4 Invitation to sexual touching Other online sexual offences against children Table 1 Note 5 Total online child pornography Possessing or accessing child pornography Making or distributing child pornography
number
Note ..

not available for a specific reference period

Note 1

Includes online sexual violations against children and other online sexual offences where a victim was identified as being aged 17 years or younger at the start of the incident.

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Note 2

Includes offences under section 163.1 of the Criminal Code which makes it illegal to make, distribute, possess or access child pornography. All child pornography incidents must have had a cyber-related component.

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Note 3

Includes online sexual offences against children and online child pornography. For the purpose of this Juristat article, "children" refers to victims aged 17 years and younger unless specified otherwise.

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Note 4

Non-consensual distribution of intimate images became a Criminal Code (s. 162.1(1)) offence in 2015 under the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act.

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Note 5

The category other online sexual offences against children is a catch all category that encompasses all other sexual violations against children (excluding online child pornography) which were facilitated by, or involved the use of, technology.

Return to note 5 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. Prior to 2020, the number of cybercrimes is an undercount as some police services were unable to report the cybercrime indicator for all years. The data exclude the Quebec City Police in 2014 and 2015, the municipal police service of Calgary from 2014 to 2016, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) from 2014 to 2017, both the Saint John Police Force and the Canadian Forces Military Police from 2014 to 2019 and Dryden, a detachment of the OPP in 2022. Counts are based on the cyber violation which may not be the most serious violation in the incident. Between 2014 and 2023, the cyber violation was not the most serious violation in 2% of online child sexual exploitation incidents. Includes a small proportion of incidents where victim age had to be recoded. For some incidents, the victim was 17 years or younger when the victimization began, but was an adult when the victimization ended. As such, the victim age in these incidents was recoded to the age when the victimization began.
Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics, Uniform Crime Reporting Survey.
2014 3,110 1,144 932 .. not available for a specific reference period 160 52 1,966 1,966 .. not available for a specific reference period
2015 3,672 1,066 851 33 109 73 2,606 1,756 850
2016 5,576 1,412 1,081 115 77 139 4,164 1,278 2,886
2017 5,482 1,573 1,087 211 101 174 3,909 1,041 2,868
2018 5,493 1,759 1,226 206 104 223 3,734 621 3,113
2019 7,479 2,104 1,394 323 121 266 5,375 1,133 4,242
2020 9,875 2,378 1,724 264 143 247 7,497 1,598 5,899
2021 9,966 2,532 1,798 280 157 297 7,434 1,903 5,531
2022 12,076 2,734 1,922 359 168 285 9,342 1,755 7,587
2023 19,516 2,624 1,705 480 154 285 16,892 2,210 14,682
Total 82,245 19,326 13,720 2,271 1,294 2,041 62,919 15,261 47,658
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