Live child sex abuse images warning from Ceop 2 July 2013 Last updated at 01:08 Images showing child sex abuse - including those streamed from live webcams - are increasingly available on the internet, experts warn. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre received reports relating to 70,000 indecent images in 2012 - twice as many as in 2011. Ceop received 8,000 reports of obscene material being downloaded or shared in the UK. An estimated 50,000 UK web users are involved in distributing abuse images. Live streaming had been identified as an emerging threat, it said. Offenders had been found to be targeting vulnerable families overseas, particularly in parts of the developing world. Children were then forced to engage in sexual activity on live webcams in exchange for payment to the family or criminals. Ceop said that online video services such as Skype were among those being exploited to transmit live images of abuse. Ceop said many abusers were hiding their actions deep in the "hidden internet" by using encrypted networks and other secure methods to distribute images. These methods made it harder for law enforcement agencies to trace abusers. "The use of the hidden internet in the UK and beyond is expected to continue increasing throughout 2013, possibly reaching 20,000 daily UK users by the end of the year," said the report. Ceop assesses that the networking and sense of 'safe' community that occurs within the hidden internet and the relative sophistication of offenders within that environment stimulates the production of [indecent images of children] on both a commercial and non-commercial basis. Searching questions Peter Davies, chief executive of Ceop, said: "Our assessment shows that, sadly, there are still too many children at risk and too many people who would cause them serious harm. We should all practise zero tolerance to child sexual exploitation and abuse. An NSPCC spokeswoman said that evidence from police in England and Wales indicated there were 20,000 sexual offences against children every year. It is essential that every dot is joined up if the most vulnerable in our society are to be protected End Quote Javed Khan, Victim Support "However, we believe this is far from the true situation as many cases are never revealed," said the spokesman. Independent charity Victim Support, meanwhile, said the police service must "ask itself some searching questions." "It's first priority is to prevent and detect crime," chief executive Javed Khan said. There were "inconsistencies in the way forces collect, record and categorise child sex abuse offences," he added. It is essential that every dot is joined up if the most vulnerable in our society are to be protected. Every police force must therefore contribute fully and consistently to the national intelligence picture - only then will we have a true picture of the scale of the problem. Policing And Criminal Justice Minister Damian Green said: "These figures are deeply troubling and show how our understanding of child sexual exploitation has greatly improved in recent years. But more needs to be done. Ceop is doing excellent work and we will see its capability strengthened when it is transferred to the National Crime Agency later this year. I am leading a new Home Office group which is urgently looking at how we better identify those at risk.