UK orders Apple, Google to block explicit images for children

Keir Starmer used a London Tech Week speech in London to tell major technology companies operating in Britain to introduce device controls that prevent children from sending, receiving, taking or viewing sexually explicit images on phones and tablets. The government gave Apple and Google three months to comply before it turns to legislation, making enforcement the immediate test of whether child online safety sits with parents, device makers or ministers. Adults would still be able to access nude content through age verification.

The move puts pressure on companies that already control the defaults on millions of devices. Apple already says its Communication Safety tools warn children when they receive or try to send nude images or videos in Messages, AirDrop, Contact Posters in the Phone app and Contacts app, FaceTime calls and video messages, shared photo albums and some third-party apps, and that the analysis happens on the child’s device rather than on Apple’s servers. That privacy design matters, because it shows the argument is not about a lack of technical capability alone, but about how aggressively those tools are deployed and whether companies choose to switch on the strongest protections by default.

The wider legal backdrop is already in place. The Online Safety Act 2023 requires services that allow pornography to use highly effective age assurance so children are not normally able to encounter it, and Ofcom says providers likely to be accessed by children had to complete risk assessments by 24 July 2025 and take action from 25 July 2025. Ofcom has also said adults should retain access to legal content once they pass strong age checks, so the regulator’s model is not prohibition but separation by age.

The urgency comes from more than explicit images alone. The National Crime Agency has warned about sextortion, and the Internet Watch Foundation has documented how AI tools can be used to turn ordinary photos of children and young people into sexual abuse imagery. That has sharpened the political case for blocking nudity before it can be shared, but it also exposes the central accountability problem: if Apple and Google already have safety tools, ministers are now asking why those tools should remain optional when children’s phones are built to do so much more by default.