Australian Federal Police have issued a fresh appeal to identify a male child whose images were found on electronic devices belonging to former Sydney childcare worker Hamish Tait, who faces 329 charges related to the alleged abuse of more than 130 children over a 16-year period. Detectives released a description of the child wearing Bluey-branded underwear with a distinctive freckle or mole, and earlier circulated de-identified clothing images, including a two-tone shirt from a Putney centre. The investigation, spanning 62 childcare sites, has prompted over 300 calls from the public, but the child and another boy in a separate image remain unidentified.

The appeal forms part of a wider crackdown across Australia. In Queensland, a 52-year-old man has been charged with 43 offences for allegedly creating and distributing AI-generated posters that superimposed women’s faces onto explicit images, along with their names and work details. In Western Australia, a 68-year-old Perth cancer specialist pleaded guilty to producing and possessing AI-generated child sexual abuse videos after a search of his home uncovered 22 devices containing real and artificial material; a separate 76-year-old Perth man faces charges after police allegedly found child abuse material on a tablet.

Beyond Australia, authorities in Latin America and North America have reported operations targeting exploitation of minors. In Peru, a man in Arequipa was placed in nine months’ preventive detention after prosecutors alleged he photographed a sleeping 15-year-old’s intimate parts. Brazilian police in the Federal District raided an apartment block in Brasília suspected of being used for the sexual exploitation of adolescents, while a third search in Santa Catarina targeted a man for the third time for possession of child sexual abuse material. In Canada’s Nova Scotia, a 67-year-old man faces possession and transmission charges; investigators believe there may be additional adult victims.

A new mandatory reporting scheme in Queensland, fast-tracked after a review into serial paedophile Ashley Paul Griffith, logged more than 200 reports of harm or abuse of children in its first three weeks, with 60 matters referred to police. A separate investigation revealed children in state care have been exposed to sexual exploitation in so-called trap houses. Meanwhile, elder abuse notifications to the state’s helpline rose 82 per cent over five years, the Elder Abuse Prevention Unit reports, prompting calls for dedicated funding. Investigations remain ongoing, and no final verdicts have been reached in the described cases.