The government is to introduce legislation that will force tech companies and app developers to verify the ages of their users, as part of new measures to protect the safety of children online.
The plans, announced today by digital minister Lisa Nandy, aim to make it “impossible” for anyone under the age of 18 to take, view or send nude images.
She described the proposals as a world-first that would give the UK the strongest online-safety laws in the world.
“For too long, technology companies have failed to protect children from some of the worst harms. 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,” she added.
End-to-end encryption in scope
Under the proposals, phones and tablets sold in the UK would require users to verify their age using “highly effective age assurance” -which could include presenting a credit card or a government ID.
The government said it was also exploring legislation that could require apps used by children to prevent them accessing or sharing nude images.
Nandy said there were particular challenges with “end-to-end encryption” but that the government was exploring a “number of potential solutions.”
Although the government gave no details, the plans are likely to include client-side scanning software, which scans the content of messages before they are encrypted by applications such as Signal or WhatsApp.
The mandatory use of the technology has been criticised by security experts for weakening security.
The government challenged tech companies, including Apple and Google in June to set out roadmaps for how they would strengthen device-level protection for children within three months to prevent children from taking, sharing, or viewing nude images.
“Both companies have developed meaningful changes at the operating-level to make it hard for children to share nude imagery,” Nandy told the Commons.
They include Apple’s roll-out of an updated operating system that restricts access to nude images, unless owners can prove they are over 18, and prevents children from sharing nude images on iMessage or Facetime.
But Nandy said while the moves were a “step in the right direction” they do not meet the scale of the crisis facing children.
She quoted figures from the Internet Watch Foundation that sextortion reports had risen from 19 in 2022 to nearly 400 in 2025, highlighting the risks facing young people online.
Prime minister Andy Burnham said that the government’s plans meant that protection will be built into devices 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,” he added.
Deep concerns over surveillance software
The campaign group Big Brother Watch said that protecting children was a noble goal, “but the government mandating that all phones come with surveillance software is a crossing of the Rubicon that would make the UK one of the most authoritarian internet regimes in the world.”
The Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR), a think tank, warned in June that many of the proposed solutions for age verification will exacerbate the harms they are trying to prevent, and could expose children to risks of blackmail and abuse.
A spokesperson for Apple said that it first introduced its Communication Safety feature in 2021 to prevent children viewing or sharing nude photographs.
“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,” the spokesperson added.
Former prime minister Keir Starmer first announced plans in February to implement a minimum age for social media, restrict addictive features such as endless scrolling and autoplay, and limit children’s access to VPNs.
Nandy said that the government would lay out the first regulations by the end of the year, with the social media ban for children due to come into force in September 2027.
Other measures under consideration include strengthening the law to protect children from harmful chatbots.
