When I became AFP Commissioner last year, I said I would have candid conversations with Australians to inform them about the threats they face. Today, I need to have another confronting but honest conversation.
Many readers will already know about the harms associated with online activity, including issues highlighted by this newspaper’s Let Them Be Kids campaign.
But parents and caregivers now need to be aware of entrenched and emerging criminal threats because of rapidly-evolving technology.
Too many youth are now at the crossroads to crime or at risk of being another victim.
AI brings many opportunities. However, the AFP is also deeply concerned that AI is accelerating and lowering the skills required to actively target victims online. As technology advances exponentially, vulnerable people, including youth, will face the greatest harm.
Crime as a Service (CaaS) and Violence as a Service (VaaS) have turned offending into a gig economy – where some youth will undertake serious crimes for cash or to ingratiate themselves with crimefluencers, or local gangs for belonging.
Criminals are using encrypted platforms, gaming platforms and other online chat groups to prey on, entice or task youth to carry out serious crimes, including offences linked to terrorism. Increasingly, AI chat bots are being used by criminals to recruit and victimise youth.
Youth who would not normally come onto the radar of counter terrorism police are now under investigation or face being charged with serious offences, including sharing or creating violent extremist material, which is desensitising generations to abhorrent violence.
Violent extremist material includes: pictures and videos of beheadings, shootings, bombings, rape and violent assaults linked to a terrorist organisation or extremist ideology; violent extremist manifestos and propaganda, and written guides on how to cause physical harm to a person.
Then there are the online decentralised crime groups that go hunting for victims online. These online crime networks are glorifying sadistic online exploitation, cyber-attacks and violence.
Right now, kids are hurting their siblings, killing their pets or injuring themselves because they are being blackmailed by other youth, teens or adults who enjoy watching the pain of others or are dominating and exploiting the vulnerable.
A worrying trend is how victims are becoming perpetrators to try to escape their online bullies who have befriended and groomed them, and then forced them to hurt themselves. For example, a victim may be told they will no longer be a target if they share videos of them hurting themselves or someone else.
The AFP launched Taskforce Pompilid in October 2025 to target sadistic online exploitation and other offences committed by these online groups, such as cybercrime and violence.
Then there are the kids who are manipulated by influencers or are radicalised by hate preachers or are self-radicalising online. Fearing they will be judged for being curious or asking questions about polarising issues, they go looking for answers online, often spiralling into hate, misogynistic or anti-authoritarian echo chambers.
As you read this, all of these crimes are now happening online.
Current detection, reporting and investigative approaches cannot keep pace with the scale and speed of harm that is coming our way.
Without serious intervention, we face mental health, education, finance and justice systems being overwhelmed by the younger generation and vulnerable people burdened by repeated victimisation.
This could also have serious consequences for democracy, traditional institutions and the rules-based order. Manipulation and the grievances criminals fuel can cause distrust in communities and fray our social fabric.
This is not just a problem for Australia – it is one most like-minded countries are facing.
This week I will be at the Five Eyes Law Enforcement Group (FELEG) meeting in London to help find solutions to these wicked problems.
The AFP will present on some of our own ingenuity, but we cannot do this alone – crime is global and it requires a force multiplier response – that is, a law enforcement and tech sector group effort.
Responsible tech companies can be the digital penicillin of our time. I’ve already had behind-the-scenes conversations with some tech companies that acknowledge what is at stake. They too understand they have their own responsibility of service to country.
We know what we can achieve if we work together.
We can disrupt harm before it happens with the use of AI and algorithms that can detect and frustrate scammers, violence and serious criminality.
For example, we could frustrate and deny criminals access to victims by engaging offenders in lengthy communications with a chat-bot where no harm is perpetuated on human victims.
By working across industry, and with FELEG partners, the AFP will be better placed to focus efforts on the criminal facilitators, orchestrators and influencers.
The threats we are facing are confronting but the AFP will ensure we use every capability and partnership to preserve our way of life in Australia and protect our future – our kids.
