Nandy Commits to Law Forcing Apple, Google to Block Kids' Nudes

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told the House of Commons on Tuesday that the government is "committing to introducing primary legislation to require major tech platforms to build in device-level protections for children," saying it is "almost certain that we will be legislating in this area."

The pressure follows a three-month ultimatum issued in June, when ministers asked Apple and Google to detect and block nude imagery on children's phones and tablets or face a statutory push. Nandy told MPs both companies had made "significant commitments". Apple rolled out operating-system level age assurance earlier this year and extended its Communication Safety feature to iMessage and FaceTime. But she said the measures "do not meet the scale of this crisis."

"Children are facing unacceptable levels of sexual harm online," she told the Commons, according to AOL. "They are being groomed, coerced, and manipulated into creating and sharing intimate images across online services." She cited Internet Watch Foundation figures showing that 91% of online child sexual abuse reports recorded in 2024 contained content generated by children themselves, and told MPs that under-18s are the subjects of nearly a quarter of online blackmail cases. Bloomberg reported that talks with the two companies, whose operating systems dominate the UK smartphone market, had not reached agreement as the deadline passed.

Nandy said the government wants Britain to be "the first country in the world to go this far" and would introduce the legislation "as soon as we can," while declining to name a date. It lands on a busy day for our regulation tracker, which this morning also logged Australia's 'My Feed, My Way' algorithm opt-out bill aimed at the same platform layer.