What proportion of CyberTips routed to ICAC task forces resulted in charges or convictions in 2023 and 2024?

1. The data gap: DOJ’s limited tracking means no national “conversion rate” exists

The Department of Justice’s own materials acknowledge only limited tracking of CyberTip outcomes, noting for example that of 9,711 CyberTips received in one documented dataset for calendar year 2023 the DOJ’s tracking fields are incomplete—an explicit signal that a consolidated, nationwide record of how many tips produced charges or convictions is not being published ^[1]. Multiple task forces and state agencies publish counts of tips received, case loads, or arrests in specific operations, but those publications stop short of offering an aggregated denominator-to-outcome calculation for 2023 or 2024 ^{[2] [5]}.

2. Volume overwhelms: millions of CyberTips versus far fewer arrests and subpoenas

NCMEC and industry summaries report a deluge of CyberTips in 2023—ranging from large platform-level counts to claims of tens of millions nationally—creating an enormous investigative intake that outpaces existing resources, and forcing triage and automated filtering before human investigators engage ^{[3] [2]}. Local task forces illustrate the mismatch: the New York ICAC reported receiving over 22,000 CyberTips in 2023 and supporting more than 4,000 subpoena requests, while a Los Angeles operation publicized 139 arrests during a focused enforcement sweep—examples that demonstrate a gulf between tips and downstream charging decisions but do not allow a precise national ratio to be calculated ^{[5] [4]}.

3. Why so few tips lead to charges or convictions—operational realities

Sources describe how many CyberTips are triggered automatically by hash matches to known child sexual abuse material or by platform detection systems; those automated reports can remove content or generate investigative leads but do not by themselves equate to provable criminal conduct requiring prosecution, and they require legal process, triage, and forensic work to develop into charges ^[3]. Task forces have invested in triage and case‑management tools—Georgia’s deployment of Case Closed Software in 2024 and state efforts to shorten analyst backlog illustrate attempts to turn volume into actionable cases—but capacity limits and resource shortages mean many tips never progress to charging decisions ^[6].

4. Local snapshots, not a national picture: what existing reports reveal and conceal

State and regional reporting is useful for context—some ICAC units document rapid increases in tip volume and report operational outcomes such as arrests or subpoenas ^{[5] [4]}—but these disclosures are inconsistent in format and scope and typically omit the number of tips that were investigated to completion, declined, or closed with no criminal referral. The Assembly/ICAC background material confirms distribution practices and workload statistics (including a cited U.S. location‑traced count for 2023), but it does not supply a national prosecution or conviction numerator tied to the CyberTip denominator ^[2].

5. Conclusion and what’s needed for a definitive answer

The sources reviewed establish that CyberTips surged in 2023 and 2024 and that ICAC task forces face severe triage and resource challenges, but they do not provide a validated national proportion of CyberTips that resulted in charges or convictions for those years; therefore no precise percentage can be reported from the available material ^{[1] [3] [2]}. To produce a defensible conversion rate would require standardized reporting from NCMEC and DOJ (or a mandated national dashboard) linking each routed CyberTip to its investigative disposition and prosecutorial outcome across all ICAC task forces—data that the current public record does not contain ^[1].