Preserve first
Save usernames, display names, dates, profile links, app names, group names, and key messages where safe.
Preserve evidence without spreading harm.
This page helps parents avoid common evidence mistakes after grooming, sextortion, threats, image abuse, deepfake abuse, or unsafe online contact.
When parents find evidence, the instinct is to react fast. But evidence can be lost, spread, contaminated, or used to shame the child if it is handled badly.
The goal is simple:
protect the child, preserve key facts, avoid spreading harmful material, and report through the right pathway.
Forwarding harmful or sexualised images involving a child.
Posting screenshots publicly to warn others.
Deleting messages before key details are preserved.
Confronting the suspected person before reporting or saving details.
Sharing the child’s private situation in group chats.
Using evidence to shame or punish the child.
Relying only on memory after the evidence disappears.
If an image involves a child in a sexualised, nude, altered, humiliating, abusive, or exploitative way, do not send it around to prove what happened.
Do not forward it to family.
Do not send it to other parents.
Do not post it online.
Do not upload it into group chats.
Use official reporting and removal pathways.
Public posting may feel like warning others, but it can expose the child further, alert the unsafe person, create defamation risk, trigger deletion, and spread private details.
Deleting can remove usernames, links, timestamps, threats, context, and message sequence.
Save usernames, display names, dates, profile links, app names, group names, and key messages where safe.
After key details are preserved, reduce unsafe contact through blocking, reporting, privacy settings, or account security steps.
A rushed confrontation can cause evidence deletion, account changes, threats, retaliation, or more pressure on the child.
Do not threaten them from your own account.
Do not pretend to be the child to trap them.
Do not bait them for more messages.
Do not arrange a meeting.
Do not make the child keep replying to collect evidence.
Evidence should be used to protect and report, not to humiliate, punish, or repeatedly replay the child’s mistake or trauma.
“You are not in trouble for needing help. We are saving this so we can deal with it properly.”
“Look what you did.” “How could you be so stupid?” “Everyone needs to see this.”
Do not assume reporting is impossible. Save what remains and write down what you remember while it is fresh.
Do not forward harmful images.
Do not post private evidence publicly.
Do not delete key details too early.
Do not confront the suspected person first.
Do not make the child feel blamed for needing help.