600 vulnerable children identified with new method of police

The police have become better at identifying children who are subjected to documented sexual abuse. With a new method, 600 Swedish children have been found.

“The method really works, we have gone from zero to a hundred,” says Louise Åhlén, business developer at the police’s national operational department Noa.

It was last year that the police put together a new national team with employees from all police regions with a special focus on identifying children who have been subjected to different types of documented sexual abuse. In 2025, the work was widely implemented – and this has produced results.

Filter better

Thanks to a new method, the team works with its own analysis program with effective AI functions and with a database from Interpol, 600 Swedish children have been identified on pictures and films online during the year.

– Historically, we have had to look at the picture for the picture and tried to find the children and what they have been exposed to. There are so many files so we have felt a need to structure. The new method is based on the fact that with the help of the program we go directly into the files that are interesting. We can filter and sort away more easily, says Louise Åhlén, business developer at the Isöb police group at NOA, who works especially with internet -related sexual abuse against children.

– It is also true that we now have a team behind us. If there is any child who has been exposed to a social media platform right now, we have teams in each region that specializes in finding those children and who they have been exposed to. So we work partly with the software and partly with which people you have to tie.

The analysis program does part of the filtration work itself, but the police must nevertheless have a watchful eye over the process.

– We have to put the puzzle. It may not just be the very abuse we are looking for. We have to look for pictures that can tell you where the child is. It can be a sofa we are looking for.

Constant development

The new analysis program is constantly evolving – and according to Louise Åhlén, it is important for the police’s work to continue to be successful.

– If there are new things, we can develop faster. Since we are in teams, we can constantly say “now we need this feature or work like this” and that is perhaps the best thing about this method, she says.

Being able to identify children on abuse images is more or less decisive for the perpetrators to be found.

– If we find the children we usually find the perpetrator, says Louise Åhlén.