Lisboa, 10 fev 2026 (Lusa) - The number of reports of illegal online content increased by 70% year-on-year in 2025, to 1,747, with more than a thousand relating to child sexual abuse content, Carolina Soares, manager of Linha Internet Segura (LIS), told Lusa.
"Accompanying this growth trend we have seen in support for victims of cybercrime and violence [949 cases]", there has been "an increase in reports to the illegal content reporting channel we call the Hotline," she said.
The Safe Internet Line is a service provided by the Safe Internet Centre, coordinated by the Portuguese Association for Victim Support (APAV), with two dimensions: Helpline, which provides anonymous and confidential telephone or online support to victims of cybercrime, and the Hotline, a platform for reporting illegal online content such as child sexual abuse, incitement to violence, racism, xenophobia and online terrorism.
Of the 1,747 reports received by the Hotline last year, compared to 2024, "we had an increase of around 70% in the number of cases reported, of which 61% relate to sexual content involving minors, which also represents an increase of 41% compared to the previous year," he said.
Of the total number of reports received in 2025, 61.6% relate to sexual abuse of minors (1,076), compared to 761 a year earlier.
"Then we had another very significant increase of 112% in hate speech situations [to 569 reports] that were reported to us compared to 2024," added Carolina Soares, pointing out that there was a significant increase in these two categories.
In other words, "more people are reporting what they believe to be, and often is, sexual content involving minors online, and more people are also reporting situations of hate speech online," she emphasised.
"It seems to me that both situations deserve particular attention: on the one hand, because we also have people (...) who are more attentive and responsive to content they see online and, on the other hand, we are also aware that there is a higher percentage of this type of content proliferating in the digital space," she pointed out.
In total, 1,780 images and videos were categorised, 49% of which related to female victims (870).
When someone reports something, "a technical analyst will then check the content in a specific room for this purpose and, in the case of a report of sexual content involving minors, we have to check whether that content is hosted in Portugal or abroad," he explained.
If it is hosted in Portugal, APAV reports it to Portugal's criminal investigation police agency (PJ), namely the Cybercrime Unit, with which it has a protocol. They then upload the content to a platform hosted on Interpol's servers, enter the URL [address] to extract it, and analyse the image or video, so that international police can work to identify the minors and perpetrators.
"If the content is hosted in Portugal, we also do what we call Notice and Take Down, which is an NTD", which is to report it to the hosting service where this content is located so that it can be removed within 72 hours.
Portugal's criminal investigation police agency (PJ) is always informed of these procedures.
In the case of reports of hate speech content, "the analysis is somewhat similar, so we have to check whether it falls under Article 240, which is the article on discrimination in our Penal Code," he said.
If it does, APAV reports it to the PJ, and may also request the removal of the publication.
The Safe Internet Centre, coordinated by the National Cybersecurity Centre (CNCS), is the result of a consortium involving the DGE - Directorate-General for Education, the IPDJ - Portuguese Institute for Sport and Youth, the FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology, the APAV and Microsoft Portugal.
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