Government to legislate forcing tech firms to block children taking or sharing nude images after three-month deadline

The government said it will introduce legislation to require tech companies to prevent children from taking and sharing nude images on mobile devices.

Culture secretary Lisa Nandy told MPs Apple and Google were given three months in June but, despite “significant commitments”, current proposals “do not meet the scale of this crisis”; ministers will legislate “as soon as they can” while retaining the option to reassess if firms deliver solutions sooner.

The draft would mandate device-level blocks on nudity for devices used by under-18s and require app providers used by children to implement similar blocks. Nandy said this approach would change the whole ecosystem and tackle the means by which children are most often abused or groomed online.

Apple said it launched its Communication Safety feature in 2021 to help stop children seeing or sharing imagery containing nudity and has continued to expand its capabilities; it told UK officials about future plans to strengthen that and other tools. A Google spokesperson said the company is an “industry leader in combating non-consensual intimate imagery” and has “made progress” while remaining committed to child safety efforts.

Charities and police welcomed the proposals. Ofcom data show a growing share of younger children in the UK own smartphones; the NSPCC says content filmed on a child’s device can be the starting point for grooming, sexual extortion and other online child sexual abuse. NSPCC chief executive Chris Sherwood called the legislative plans a “necessary move” after firms missed the three-month deadline and urged swift action.

Online-rights group Open Rights Group warned implementing the change would require verifying whether a user is an adult or a child and could force adults through a digital ID checkpoint with private images scanned by default. The government has denied this would amount to surveillance.

The proposals originate from the government’s violence against women and girls strategy. UK police chiefs have said restricting children’s devices from taking or sharing nude images would be a key step to prevent sextortion.