When it comes to the safety of our children, standing by is not an option.
That is why I’m making Britain the first country in the world where it is impossible for children to take, share or view nude images on their phones.
I announced today that big tech firms must introduce these protections. They have three months to act or we will legislate and force them to.
The facts here are stark. Over 90% of online child sexual abuse reports now contain self-generated content, which means children being manipulated, coerced and exploited into creating images on the very devices we hand them. The average child now encounters pornography by age 13. These aren’t abstract statistics. These are young lives being damaged, often permanently.
For too long, tech companies have had the tools to fix this and chosen not to use them. They have already built nudity detection technology. They just haven’t switched it on by default, for every child, on every device. That ends now.
Nothing is off the table, including fines for companies that don’t comply and criminal liability for tech bosses who fail to act.
But this announcement is just one part of my fight to give children the right to grow up safely. You saw that with Elon Musk’s Grok. When they allowed their tools to be used to create disgusting, explicit AI images of children, we took them on.
We have received over 100,000 responses to our consultation on children’s use of social media – from parents, young people and experts across the country. I have read what they are saying. We are going to act. This needs to be a gamechanger.
I will set out our next steps shortly. But I want every parent who has worried about what their child is seeing, who has felt powerless against platforms that seem to answer to nobody, to know this: that changes under this government.
Because we are putting power back in the hands of working people as we build a stronger, fairer Britain.
Thank you,
Keir Starmer
Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party