New law to force tech firms to stop children taking or sharing nude images
Developed over time first seen 2 months ago
The government has confirmed it will legislate to force tech companies to stop children taking or sharing nude images on smartphones and other devices, after Apple and Google failed to meet a three-month deadline set in June with measures ministers say fall short. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told MPs on Tuesday that although both firms had made "significant commitments", their current proposals "do not meet the scale of this crisis", so ministers would legislate "as soon as they can" — though this could be revisited if the companies act sooner. This matters because charities and police say images captured on children's own devices are frequently the starting point for grooming, sexual extortion and other online abuse.
The draft legislation would go further than device-level blocks, also requiring providers of apps used by children to introduce similar safeguards against nude imagery, so the "whole ecosystem changes". Apple and Google both said they had already made progress, pointing to features such as Apple's Communication Safety tool, and said they remained committed to further work with UK officials. The measures, which stem from the government's violence against women and girls strategy, would not restrict adults' access to nude images but may require age-checks to distinguish child from adult users, a prospect campaigners such as the Open Rights Group have raised privacy concerns about. The NSPCC and the Molly Rose Foundation welcomed the legislative commitment but urged ministers to move quickly, noting the process had already been slow.
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In short
- Ministers to legislate after Apple, Google missed June deadline on child nudity blocks
- New law would also cover apps, not just device-level protections
- Charities welcome move but urge swift action to avoid further delay
How this story developed
- 2 months ago The government has confirmed it will legislate to force tech companies to stop children taking or sharing nude images on smartphones and other devices, after Apple and Google failed to meet a three-month deadline set in June with measures ministers say fall short.
- 2 months ago The UK government has announced it will introduce a new law forcing tech firms such as Apple and Google to prevent children from taking or sharing nude images on smartphones and other devices.
- 2 months ago The government has confirmed it will legislate to force tech companies to stop children taking or sharing nude images on smartphones and other devices, after Apple and Google failed to meet a three-month deadline set in June with measures ministers say fall short.
Full account
The government has confirmed it will bring forward legislation compelling technology companies to stop children taking or sharing nude images on their devices, after talks with Apple and Google failed to produce an agreement the ministers regarded as adequate. Culture secretary Lisa Nandy told the House of Commons that although both firms had offered what she called meaningful commitments since being given a three-month deadline in June, their proposals still fell short of addressing what she described as the scale of the problem. She said the government intended to legislate as quickly as possible, though it would keep the door open to updating its plans if the companies moved faster on their own solutions in the meantime.
Under the proposed law, safeguards would be built directly into devices and switched on automatically, rather than left for parents or children to activate. Users would need to have their age verified as adults before being able to capture, view or send nude images on a phone or similar device. Ministers also want the same restrictions extended beyond the operating systems themselves to the individual apps children use, which would require separate legislative provisions. Nandy argued that tackling both the device and the app layer together was necessary to change what she called the wider ecosystem exploited by those who abuse or groom children online.
Apple and Google both pointed to safety tools they already have in place. Apple said its Communication Safety feature, introduced in 2021 to limit children's exposure to nudity, had been continually expanded, and that it had shared further plans with UK officials to strengthen its protections. Google described itself as a leader in tackling non-consensual intimate imagery and child safety more broadly, saying it was pleased with the progress made and remained committed to further work. Nandy nonetheless told MPs she was no longer willing to assume progress would continue at the pace required while children continued to come to harm, and reporting suggests that unresolved concerns, including around privacy, were among the sticking points in the negotiations.
Child protection groups broadly welcomed the announcement while pressing for speed. The NSPCC's chief executive, Chris Sherwood, called legislation a necessary step following the missed deadline but said children could not afford further delay. The Internet Watch Foundation, which tracks online child sexual abuse material, said it was troubling that the industry had not acted in full but welcomed the government's firmer stance; the organisation has previously recorded quarter of the abuse material it identifies as self-generated by children, amounting to well over 100,000 items in a year. Labour MP Jess Phillips said the change should curb the production of such self-generated material in the UK, while urging ministers to push other countries to follow suit so that Britain was not left enforcing the standard alone for long.
Where outlets differ
From the full account, which is AI-written from the sources:
Source 1 (BBC-style account) foregrounds the tech firms' own statements, citing detailed quotes from Apple and Google spokespeople defending their existing safety tools, and includes Ofcom data on rising smartphone ownership among children plus NSPCC comment on grooming risks.
Source 2 (Guardian-style account) frames the story more as a political clash, describing it as putting ministers 'on a collision course' with Silicon Valley and linking it to the government's separate social media ban for under-16s; it also cites unnamed sources describing privacy concerns as a hurdle in the failed talks.
Source 2 attributes remarks about default, built-in device protections to 'the prime minister, Andy Burnham', and separately notes that giving Apple and Google the original three-month deadline was one of Keir Starmer's final acts as prime minister — implying a change of prime minister between the two events that Source 1 does not mention at all.
Source 2 includes reaction from Jess Phillips MP and the Internet Watch Foundation's Hannah Swirsky, including IWF statistics on self-generated abuse material, none of which appear in Source 1.
Source 1 includes reaction from NSPCC chief executive Chris Sherwood and references police chiefs' views on sextortion risks, which Source 2 does not mention.
Left-leaning outlets 1
Only here: apple, google, block, explicit, smartphones
Centre outlets 1
Only here: tech, firms, stop, taking, sharing
Every side used: force, images, children
Headline columns compared word for word; nothing in them is AI-written.
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Advocates for firm, swift legislation argue that self-regulation has had its chance and failed: images taken on children's own phones are, according to police and charities, a common gateway into grooming and sexual extortion, and every month of delay leaves more children exposed to serious harm. They contend that voluntary industry commitments have repeatedly proven too slow and too narrow, so only binding legal duties covering the whole app ecosystem – not just device settings – can force consistent, effective protection. On this view, protecting children from a well-documented and growing form of abuse must take precedence over the inconvenience or cost such rules impose on technology companies.
The case against
Sceptics of a legislative mandate, including digital rights groups, worry less about the goal than the mechanism: reliably distinguishing children's devices and accounts from adults' may require some form of age verification, which could draw all users, including adults exercising a lawful right to share intimate images, into intrusive identity or age checks. They also caution that mandating a single technical approach across a vast range of apps risks being unworkable, could push determined offenders toward less regulated platforms, and may set a precedent for content-scanning powers that are hard to confine narrowly to their original purpose. For them, the priority is achieving genuine child protection without normalising broader surveillance or eroding privacy and free expression for everyone else.
Explained simply
Ministers have long promised action to tackle child sexual abuse online, and children's charities and police forces have repeatedly warned that self-generated nude images, often taken on a child's own phone, are a common first step in grooming and blackmail. In June the government gave Apple and Google three months to introduce technical measures preventing children from capturing or sending such images on their devices, but says the changes proposed by both companies do not go far enough.
Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, is the minister leading this issue and has told Parliament that new legislation will be introduced to compel action rather than continuing to rely on voluntary industry commitments. Apple and Google are the central companies involved, since their operating systems and app stores underpin most smartphones used by children in the UK. Child protection groups such as the NSPCC and the Molly Rose Foundation, named after a teenager whose death was linked to harmful online content, have been pushing for stronger rules and are watching closely to see how quickly any law is delivered.
The issue matters because it sits at the intersection of child safety and wider debates about online privacy and free access to technology. Any measures aimed specifically at blocking nude images for children could require ways of checking a user's age, which privacy campaigners such as the Open Rights Group say may have implications for adults' use of the same apps and devices.
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