For the first time, West Yorkshire Police has teamed up with Counter Terrorism Policing, MI5, and the National Crime Agency to spread an important message.
It comes as “an increasing number” of young people are being dragged into terrorism offences “enabled by the internet”.
Counter Terrorism Policing and MI5 are seeing high levels of young people in terrorism-related investigations and 2023 saw the highest numbers of terrorism arrests of young people since records began.
Alexander Murray, the National Crime Agency’s director of threat leadership, said:
“As outlined in our recent threat assessment, there is a fast-growing threat from sadistic and violent online gangs, made up predominantly of teenage boys, dedicated to inflicting harm and committing a range of criminality which includes fraud, cyber, child sexual abuse, violence and extremism/terror related offences.
“They are international and operate across multiple channels, including messaging apps, gaming platforms and other online forums.
“We are working closely with our partners in response to this complex threat, but we recommend that adults take time to understand the online lives of young people to help prevent them falling victim to these networks.”
In a post on West Yorkshire Police’s Bradford City NPT page, a spokesperson said: “Do you know what your child is doing behind closed doors?
“For the first time, Counter Terrorism Policing, MI5, and the National Crime Agency are jointly calling on parents and carers to support their children to be safer online during the summer break.
“Unfortunately, an increasing number of young people are being arrested for and convicted of terrorism offences enabled by the internet.”