The UK government has pledged to introduce the world’s strongest online child safety laws as it prepares legislation on nude images.
The government announced earlier this month that it is set to introduce new legislation which will force tech companies to strengthen protections on both devices and platforms to prevent young people under the age of 18 from taking, sharing or viewing nude images.
The new law is designed to tackle grooming, exploitation and online abuse before children are exposed to harm.
Although the government says that tech giants like Apple and Google have made progress on online safety, stronger safeguards are still required to tackle the growing issue of child sexual exploitation and online sexual abuse in the digital age.
New legislation will be a ‘world-first’ for online child safety laws
The government says its proposed new legislation will be a “world-first,” and make the UK a global leader on online safety.
On 8th June 2026, the government began negotiating with Apple and Google to secure world-first commitments that would make it impossible for children to send, take or view nude images on their devices. They gave firms until 8th September to install these safeguards.
Three weeks on from that deadline, the government confirms there “has been progress, but that efforts so far “do not meet the scale of the government’s ambition.”
Seeking to build the strongest online child safety laws in the world, the government announced on 9th September – the day after the deadline they set Big Tech – that it would bring forward legislation that could require apps to prevent users under the age of 18 from accessing or sharing nudity.
The government says this move is about “ensuring the whole ecosystem changes to protect children.”
The proposed new laws will be based on the following principles:
- It must be impossible for children to take, view or send nude images. Therefore these images must be blocked across all device features, including the camera and third-party apps
- Parents and carers should not have to take active steps to prevent children from consuming nude content. Instead, nudity detection filters should be switched on by default
- The only way for any user to take, view or send nude images should be for an adult to verify their age through a robust age-assurance process.
Government ‘will not hesitate’ to introduce online child safety laws
In a press release, the government said:
“Given the complexity of this issue, it is vital that we take the time to get this legislation right, but the government will introduce it as soon as possible, and it will tackle the means by which children are most often abused and groomed in the online world. If companies implement solutions themselves, we will reassess whether this is necessary.”
Prime Minister Andy Burnham acknowledged that the biggest technology companies in the world “have moved” on the issue but said it was “not far enough or fast enough.”
Declaring that his government “will not hesitate to change the law,” he added:
“The protection will be built into the device and switched on by default. It will be for the companies to prove a user is an adult, not for a child to keep themselves out of harm’s way. No country has required that before. Britain will be the first, and we will have the strongest child safety laws in the world.”
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Lisa Nandy, said in Parliament:
“In no other walk of life would we tolerate this crisis harming our children, so why should we tolerate it online?
“We will give tech companies the chance to lead, but not allow them to lag. The message we are sending to tech companies is clear – planning must now become implementation, and progress must translate into protections that make a real difference in children’s lives.
“When it comes to children’s safety, we are not and never will be bystanders.”
Other online safety measures introduced by the government include:
- Banning social media companies from providing their services to under-16s
- Restrictions on high-risk features such as livestreaming or stranger communications for platforms like games
- Switching off features that encourage users to keep scrolling for longer by default for 16 and 17-year-olds. This includes videos that automatically play one after another and feeds that continually serve up personalised content
Children face a ‘rapidly escalating threat’ online
The government says it is working “to ensure every layer of the technology system plays its part to protect children from some of the worst harms online,” as figures reveal a “rapidly escalating threat facing young people online.”
The Internet Watch Foundation recently reported that more child sexual extortion-related reports had been recorded in the first 6 months of 2026 than during the whole of 2025. Their Report Remove service has seen a dramatic increase in ‘sextortion’ reports, with such instances rising from just 19 in 2022 to 394 in 2025.
In addition, the charity reported that, in 2024, more than 9 in 10 online child sexual abuse reports contained self-generated content from children themselves.
Indeed, national children’s charity the NSPCC says that content filmed on a child’s own device can often be the starting point for grooming, sexual extortion and other forms on online child sexual abuse. And UK police chiefs have previously stated that restricting the ability of children’s devices to take or share nude images would be a key step in preventing sextortion.
Reactions to proposed new online child safety laws
A spokesperson from Apple has said it launched its Communication Safety feature in 2021 to prevent children from seeing or sharing imagery containing nudity and that it had since worked to “expand its capabilities.”
They added:
“We share the UK’s commitment to combating exploitation and abuse online, and have shared with UK officials future plans to strengthen Communication Safety and other tools even further to help keep kids safe.”
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Google said the tech giant was already an “industry leader in combating non-consensual intimate imagery and advancing child safety across our products.”
A number of charities, organisations and campaigners have welcomed the government’s legislative plans, with NSPCC Chief Executive Chris Sherwood saying tougher laws were a “necessary move” after tech firms failed to meet the initial three-month deadline to proactively implement the safety features.
But charity leaders are urging the government to act swiftly, with Sherwood saying that “children cannot face more delays,” and Andy Burrows of the Molly Rose Foundation saying there had been “a needlessly long and torturous road,” to secure new measures.
Other critics claim the move would amount to surveillance.
Online rights campaigners at the Open Rights Group believe the change would result in all adults being “forced through a digital ID checkpoint,” where they warn that “private images could be scanned by default.”
Training to safeguard children on and offline
First Response Training (FRT) is a leading national training provider delivering courses in subjects such as health and safety, first aid, fire safety, manual handling, food hygiene, mental health, health and social care, safeguarding and more.
They work with a large number of early years, schools and childcare providers, as well as colleges, youth groups and children’s services. Their courses include Safeguarding Children.
A trainer from FRT says:
“Safeguarding children means protecting them off and online and being aware of new apps, platforms and developing technologies and how children may be interacting with these, and how they intersect with issues of child safety and protection.
“It’s so important that we are mindful of the harms children and young people are exposed to when they use technology and that there are mechanisms in place to protect them, and to offer them help and support when they need it most. Children who are anxious about technology and things they have seen or experienced online need to feel they have a safe space where they can talk about their worries and experiences.
“It’s vital that anyone who works with children and young people is aware of their responsibility for safeguarding children and that they can recognise the signs that indicate a child may be experiencing abuse, including online grooming, harassment or sextortion, and know the correct action to take in response.”
For more information on the training that FRT can provide, please call them today on freephone 0800 310 2300 or send an e-mail to info@firstresponsetraining.com.