Tech giants Apple and Google have been given until September to install software that blocks nude images on children’s phones, with the government warning that legislation will follow if they fail to act. Announcing the ultimatum at London Tech Week, Sir Keir Starmer said the two companies, which between them control the operating systems on almost all smartphones, must activate nudity-detection algorithms or other technical solutions on devices to prevent children from capturing, sharing or viewing explicit content. Adults would need to verify their age to access such material. The prime minister highlighted a product built by the UK company SafeToNet as proof the technology already exists.
Deadline for Tech Giants
The deadline applies to both existing and newly sold smartphones and tablets in the UK. Sir Keir said the aim is to make Britain the first country where it is effectively impossible for under-18s to engage with nude imagery on their devices. Failure to comply by September will result in legislation mandating the changes. The announcement is technically a warning – the three-month window is still open – and comes after the Online Safety Act was years in the drafting. That Act, which officially became law in October 2023, places new duties on social media companies and search services to be more responsible for user safety, with Ofcom as the regulator. The children’s safety duties under the Act came into force on 25 July 2025.
Frustration and Political Pressure
The prime minister’s move follows months of frustration from campaigners and from Jess Phillips, the former safeguarding minister who resigned from the government after saying she had lost confidence in Sir Keir’s leadership. Phillips had presented solutions more than a year ago, she said, that would end the ability for children in the UK to take naked images of themselves. An announcement planned for March was postponed, leaving her frustrated. In the end, she had secured only a pledge that the law might change sometime. Hannah Swirsky, head of policy at the Internet Watch Foundation, echoed Phillips’s complaint that the government had been slow to act despite a rise in offences involving self-generated explicit imagery.
Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner for England, believes that new rules should also apply to 16- and 17-year-olds, who are considered children under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. She has also been involved in developing new guidance on screen time for children aged 5 to 16, intended to provide practical support for parents.
From User Responsibility to Platform Accountability
The government’s demand marks a significant shift in the philosophy of tech regulation. For years, technology companies fought plans to regulate their systems, preferring rules that focus on users – so that individuals, rather than platforms, are held responsible for any harms. Some digital rights activists joined this resistance, opposing identity- and age-verification tools on principle despite the obvious risks to children in an engineered environment that refuses to recognise their age.
But in recent months, legislators and courts have pushed back. Last December, the world’s first social media ban for under-16s came into force in Australia, requiring platforms to block minors from creating or keeping accounts, with significant fines for non-compliance. (UNICEF Australia has suggested that improving social media safety features might be a more effective solution than simply delaying access.) In March, a court in California ruled in favour of a woman who claimed Meta and YouTube were responsible for her social-media addiction as a child; a jury awarded her $3 million in damages in a landmark trial that accused the platforms of intentionally making their products addictive and targeting teens despite internal research highlighting potential mental health damage.
Now the UK government is demanding that tech businesses go beyond their content-moderation duties by altering settings on their devices. The Online Safety Act already requires providers to assess how algorithms might expose users – particularly children – to illegal or harmful content and to take steps to mitigate those risks. The Act also mandates “highly effective age assurance” measures, such as identity verification or age estimation, though concerns have been raised about the effectiveness and privacy implications of these tools. The government is expected to make further announcements on age limits soon. Some legislators appear to be realising that they need to get better at anticipating damage rather than responding to it, a principle that underpins both the UK’s Online Safety Act and the European Union’s Digital Services Act, which entered into force in February 2024.
Broader Harms and the Fight Against Misinformation
The harm caused by unregulated tech is not limited to children. Jess Asato, a Labour MP, is suing xAI, the company behind the Grok AI chatbot, for invasion of privacy after the tool was used to create non-consensual fake sexualised images of her, including one depicting her in a bikini. Asato is seeking damages and a ruling that xAI’s design choices were illegal, aiming to set a precedent for AI companies’ accountability. Following outcry, xAI said it would no longer allow users to edit images of real people to remove their clothing.
Beyond individual cases, a report from the Social Market Foundation thinktank describes local misinformation as a “silent killer of trust”. The report found that misinformation is nearly three times more prevalent in areas with limited or no local news outlets – so-called “news deserts” – with immigration and Islamophobia identified as common themes. It calls for increased investment in misinformation awareness campaigns and improved media literacy. Firm action from governments on child safeguarding is long overdue; the laissez-faire approach of the last two decades has been a shameful failure. But other changes will be needed too if big tech is to be cut down to size as a tool used by humans – rather than people being treated as pawns by big tech.
