The UK government will require technology companies such as Apple Inc. and Google to stop children from taking, sharing or viewing nude images on their phones and tablets, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told the House of Commons on Tuesday.
Nandy said ministers would introduce primary legislation “as soon as we can,” but declined to give a precise timetable. The government had given Apple and Alphabet Inc.-owned Google a three-month deadline in June to introduce such measures voluntarily. Although both firms offer content protections for young users, neither comprehensively blocks the taking or sending of nude images across devices.
Nandy praised some “meaningful changes” at the operating-system level, including progress toward blocking rather than merely blurring nude imagery on underage devices, and Apple’s earlier rollout of operating-system age assurance tied to safety features on iMessage and FaceTime. She said those steps were not enough.
“For too long, technology companies have failed to protect children from some of the worst harms,” Nandy said. “And to be frank, I am not prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt that progress will continue at the pace that we need it to, while harm is being done now.”
The planned law would require major platforms to build device-level protections into smartphones and tablets sold and used in the UK, covering both existing and newly sold devices. Officials also intend to require apps used by children to introduce similar blocks on nude imagery, so restrictions are not limited to cameras and first-party messaging.
Nandy said the government could reassess legislation if Apple and Google implement technical solutions before a bill is passed. “We know that this is a sector that can, when required, innovate at an extraordinary pace when the chips are down,” she said. Based on the past three months, she added, it was “almost certain” that legislation would be needed.
The June challenge, announced during London Tech Week, set a goal of making Britain the first country where children could not take, share or view naked pictures on their devices. Protections would be on by default for under-18s, with adults able to use unrestricted features after age verification. Officials have said the measures would not require monitoring or reporting of adult users’ content.
An Apple spokesperson said the company launched its Communication Safety feature in 2021 and has continued to expand it.
Nandy said some details still need to be resolved, including which devices would be covered. Draft legislation is expected to apply to operating-system providers and potentially others in the supply chain, such as retailers.
MacDailyNews Take: Forcing Apple to make it impossible for children to take, view, or share nudes at the whole-device level sounds simple. In practice it would trade one harm for others that hit ordinary users, not just predators.
It cannot stay “kids-only” without checking everyone.
The government itself says blocks would be on by default and lifted only after age assurance. That means adults — and older teens — must prove they are adults to use a normal camera, Photos, Messages, or many apps. Age checks are leaky: they can be wrong around the 16–18 boundary, biased by face/age models, spoofed, or borrowed (a child using a parent’s unlocked phone). Shared family devices become a mess.
A phone that inspects every photo is a different kind of device.
To stop taking nudes, the OS has to watch the camera, the gallery, screenshots, and third-party apps — not just iMessage. Apple’s current Communication Safety blurs and warns after content appears in specific apps, on-device, without sending images to Apple. A mandate to block creation and viewing everywhere is a live content filter on the device. Even if images never leave the phone, users lose the assumption that the camera and photo library are private tools they control. Privacy groups and encrypted-messaging firms called that a surveillance architecture, even when UK ministers claim “no reporting, no monitoring.”
Nudity detectors get it wrong.
Skin, babies in a bath, medical photos, art, sports, breastfeeding, theatre, and accidental crop can all look like “nudity” to a model. A high accuracy rate still produces a lot of false blocks when every UK iPhone is scanning constantly. Kids and parents then fight a black-box “your photo is banned” system with no good appeal.
Safety software can create new security holes.
The UK has already pointed to on-device blockers as the model. A phone sold as doing exactly this kind of blocking was later pulled after researchers found serious other flaws (including a reported way to pair as another child’s “guardian”). Extra privileged scanners in the OS are more attack surface: bugs, poorly designed parental pairing, and pressure to expand the same pipeline later (violence, “harmful” speech, whatever the next statute names).
Determined harm still happens; everyday use gets worse.
A child can still use an adult’s phone, an old un-updated handset, a cheap Android, a laptop, or a friend’s device. Groomers already move platforms. Meanwhile lawful users get friction: ID to turn features off, broken camera workflows, apps that refuse to work unless they hook the OS filter, and a UK-specific iOS that diverges from the rest of the world.
The precedent is the long-term cost.
Once Apple is legally required to classify and suppress a category of pixels on every UK device, the next demand is easier: more categories, more apps, more “just keep the scanner.” That is bad for users who want a general-purpose computer in their pocket—not a government-specified content appliance with an adult unlock.
Child sexual abuse is real; Apple already ships on-device warnings for that reason. The harm of a forced, default, device-wide ban plus age gates is that it weakens privacy and reliability for everyone, while remaining easy to route around for anyone with another device.
Apple already has Communication Safety (and the related Sensitive Content Warning) to detect possible nudity on-device, blur it, warn the child, and offer help—not a full device-wide ban on taking nudes with the Camera app.
What it does
• On-device machine learning checks photos/videos for nudity. Apple says it does not get the images or a signal that nudity was found.
• If a child receives or tries to send such content, it is blurred and they see a warning plus options: message a trusted adult, leave the chat, block the contact, or open safety resources.
• For children under 13 (age can vary by country), a Screen Time passcode can be required before they can view it.
• Apple documents that it is on by default for under-18s in Family Sharing on current software (age varies by region).
• It applies in Apple apps and some share flows: Messages, AirDrop, FaceTime (calls/video messages), Contact Posters, shared albums, the Photos picker, and when choosing media to send in some third-party apps—not the camera itself across every app.
Apple Support documentation
• About Communication Safety on your child’s Apple device
• Check for sensitive images and videos in Screen Time on iPhone
• About Sensitive Content Warning on Apple devices
• Receive warnings about sensitive content on iPhone
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