The UK government has given technology companies three months to activate built-in protections that detect and block nude images on smartphones and tablets used by children, or face legislation, fines, and potentially criminal liability for senior executives. The proposal would apply to smartphones and tablets in the UK, including existing and newly sold devices. It would target operating system providers such as Apple and Google, as well as other firms in the supply chain.
Announcing the plan at London Tech Week on June 8, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, “When it comes to the safety of our children, standing by is not an option. Nobody gets a free pass.” He added that Britain would become “the first country in the world to make it impossible for children to take, share or view nude images.” Meanwhile, Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said, “Companies should switch these protections on by default, for every child, on every device,” giving firms a three-month deadline to comply.
Watch Keir Starmer’s full speech here:
How can this be done? The technology required to implement the government’s proposal already exists. Apple recently introduced age verification for UK iPhone users and enabled its Communication Safety feature by default for children. The tool warns users when sending or receiving nude images through Apple’s services.
Google offers similar protections in its Messages app, blurring sensitive content for children who are supervised by a parent or guardian. Meanwhile, several third-party companies have developed software that can detect and block the creation or sharing of nude images. The UK government also pointed to British safety tech firm SafeToNet as an example, citing its AI-powered system that can identify and prevent the capture of nude images by minors directly on a device.
Signal warns of surveillance and censorship risks: Signal criticised the proposal in a statement, arguing that mandatory age verification and content scanning would create a far-reaching surveillance system rather than improve child safety. The encrypted messaging platform said children “deserve to be safe, protected, and nurtured”, but “do not deserve surveillance”. It warned that the government’s proposal to scan content on UK devices using a combination of age verification and content detection “will not safeguard children” and instead “endangers us all”.
Signal also described the requirement that users either verify their age or have their content scanned before communicating as a “perilous proposition”. The company argued that surveillance tools “never remain narrowly scoped” and could eventually be expanded to target other forms of content. It also warned that promises that the system would operate only on-device were “cold comfort”, adding that such technology could evolve from detecting nudity today to monitoring “political speech tomorrow”.
Why does this matter? The proposal would significantly expand the role that smartphone makers play in policing online content. Until now, most child-safety measures have focused on social media platforms, messaging services, and websites.
That would shift content moderation from individual services to the operating system itself, giving device manufacturers greater responsibility for determining what users can create, view and share. The move could also set an international precedent. If Apple and Google build device-level safeguards to comply with UK requirements, other governments may seek similar powers, leading to more surveillance in the name of safety.
Similar concerns emerged during MediaNama’s Bengaluru roundtable on age verification and restricting children’s access to social media in May 2026, where MediaNama founder and editor-in-chief Nikhil Pahwa warned that identifying children online would require broader checks on all users. “To verify who’s a child, they’ll have to verify everyone who’s using a service,” he said. “Once that verification mechanism comes in, it will be used for everything.”
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