German prosecutors warn cybergrooming is a mass phenomenon and call for chat scanning

Prosecutors in Baden-Württemberg have warned that cybergrooming, in which adults contact children through social media and gaming platforms with sexual intent, has become a mass phenomenon, and they say the true number of cases is very high. The warning came from the state's Cybercrime Centre (CCZ), based at the public prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe, in comments published on 11 October 2026.

The intervention lands in the middle of a European debate over so-called chat control. Representatives of the EU member states agreed in the summer to a temporary exception from European data protection rules, limited until April 2028. Baden-Württemberg's justice minister, Moritz Oppelt of the CDU, has entered the debate and argued that private communication should be allowed to be searched, and not only exceptionally.

How offenders operate

According to the CCZ, cybergrooming is carried out mainly by adult men who approach minors on social networks or gaming platforms. They send inappropriate messages or demand nude photographs. Offenders often try quickly to move the conversation into a private or secret chat, and sometimes pose as minors themselves at the start.

Senior public prosecutor Mirko Heim of the CCZ said some offenders build up contact with a victim over a long period, while others move quickly to demand nude images or images showing children during sexual acts.

The Centre says that when cybergrooming is detected, platforms generally react quickly and block the offender's account. Where American providers are involved, a report is then sent to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), a private non-profit organisation for the protection of children, which passes tips relating on Germany to the German prosecution authorities.

"The problem is that cybergrooming has to be detected," the CCZ specialists said. That, in their view, is why chat control matters. Under the temporary EU exception, end-to-end encrypted services are excluded. "There is a gap here," the specialists said.

What investigators want

The CCZ has set out several measures it would like to see. One is an obligation on platforms to collect and verify users' real data, which would make offenders easier to identify. Another is the retention of telecommunications traffic data, which allows investigators to trace offenders through IP addresses. Providers currently keep traffic data for only around seven days.

"The urgently needed law on the storage of traffic data, which is indispensable from an investigators' perspective, has been set in motion but is not yet in force," Heim said. The Centre also wants platforms to introduce age limits, after which children's accounts would not be visibly displayed.

The justice minister's position goes further than the temporary arrangement. In his view, private communication must be allowed to be searched, not just in exceptional cases.

Scale and reporting rates

The Centre cannot say how many cases there are. Thorsten Nees, first public prosecutor at the CCZ, said the reporting rate is in the single figures as a percentage. Many of those affected do not turn to their parents or other trusted people out of shame. "That runs right through it," Nees said. He added that victims and their relatives often say little or nothing during questioning as well.

Heim warned that the unreported figure is very high. "Every child who identifies themselves as a child on the internet is at risk of becoming a victim," he said.

Penalties and recent convictions

There is no separate criminal offence of cybergrooming in German law. Since 2021, however, the preparation of child sexual abuse has been a criminal offence. Whether that offence applies depends on the individual case and the accusations that come together, and penalties range from fines to prison sentences of several years.

The regional court in Heidelberg (Landgericht Heidelberg) has recently sentenced two men in two CCZ cases, to four and a half years and to almost four years in prison respectively. According to Nees, there were multiple victims in each case.

The discussion in Germany comes as officials elsewhere in Europe weigh how platforms should be held to account for harm to children, including through design rules such as the Age appropriate design code issued by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office, which applies to apps, games, websites and social media that children are likely to use even when they are not made for children.

For readers asking what this means for them, our guides cover how a social media harm claim works, the court cases we report, the case against the platforms and the latest developments.