Apple and Google will be forced to block explicit images on children’s smartphones by law in the UK after talks failed to produce a breakthrough, the government has said.
The legislation commitment puts ministers on a collision course with two of the biggest players in Silicon Valley, months after the government announced a social media ban for under-16s.
Lisa Nandy, the secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, said the government would start work on an act of parliament to stop under-18s taking, sharing or viewing nude images on their devices.
Talks with Google and Apple, whose operating systems dominate the smartphone market, had not reached agreement as a three-month deadline passed on Tuesday.
Nandy told the House of Commons the tech companies could still reach a deal but it was “almost certain” groundbreaking legislation would be required.
“For too long, technology companies have failed to protect children from some of the worst harms,” she 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 prime minister, Andy Burnham, said the protections would be “built into the device and switched on by default”, and tech companies will be required to verify an adult user’s age before they are allowed to take, view or send nude images. The government also wants the restrictions to apply to apps used by children, which will require further legislation.
Nandy said: “This will ensure that the whole ecosystem changes, tackling the means by which children are most often abused or groomed in the online world.”
Sources familiar with progress in the talks have said there iwas a desire to reach a deal on both sides but significant hurdles remained including privacy concerns on the tech side.
Jess Phillips, the Labour MP and former safeguarding minister, said the legislation would stop the UK from producing self-generated child sexual abuse material, where children are duped or groomed into sharing explicit images of themselves.
However, she urged the government to ensure the UK was followed by other countries and to make sure that “while we lead the world, we’re not standing alone for too long”.
Hannah Swirsky, head of policy at the Internet Watch Foundation, which monitors the online spread of child sexual abuse material [CSAM], said: “It is deeply disappointing that tech firms have failed to act in full, but we are pleased that the government is now taking decisive legislative action to keep children safe.”
Last year the IWF said a quarter of the images or videos of CSAM it recorded were self-generated, representing more than 140,000 pieces of content over a 12-month period.
One of Keir Starmer’s final acts as prime minister was to give Apple and Google three months to stop under-18s from generating, sending or seeing nude images on their devices, by activating built-in features on the hardware or other technological solutions. Between them, Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android smartphone operating systems dominate the mobile phone market.
The nudity block implies the use of “client-side scanning”, where content is scanned by software on the device before it is encrypted or sent.
“Client-side scanning is the least evil approach,” said Lukasz Olejnik, a visiting senior research fellow in cybersecurity and privacy at Kings College London. “That said, it does put in place an infrastructure to scan content of messages.”
Privacy campaigners have also warned that adults would have to verify their age before switching off any nudity-blocking features. In June, the government said the proposals would “not affect the use of devices owned and used by adults who verify their age”.
Google said it was “pleased to have made progress” in talks with the government and was “fully committed” to working with legislators, experts, app developers and device manufacturers to “keep children safe, while also protecting privacy and access to information”.
An Apple spokesperson said the company was preparing to strengthen its “communication safety” feature, which warns children when they are receiving or sending nude images and videos.
“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.”
