UK adults will have to go through device-level age verification before sending or receiving nude images or accessing porn, following the government giving tech companies an ultimatum about blocking nudes.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that companies, including Apple and Google, have until September 2026 to introduce software on their devices that blocks images of genitals unless the user has been verified as an adult. He said that if the companies didn’t comply he would bring in legislation to force them.
The move is designed to stop sexual predators from exploiting children through sharing and receiving nude images, and to put a stop to children sharing them. If implemented properly it will also introduce device-level age verification for porn site access, a process currently the responsibility of porn sites and platforms.
The government said that the tech companies will need to have solutions such as nudity-detection algorithms on both phones and tablets, that would trigger images of genitals being blocked on non-verified devices. On Monday (June 8, 2026) Starmer said this was “not an impossible challenge”, and that if the companies don’t comply “then we will act and we will change the law”. Whether nudity-detection that reliably distinguishes a genital image from, say, a Rubens painting counts as an impossible challenge is precisely the question he glides over.
The government said that if the changes are not seen within three months and the law needs to be changed, companies will become legally required to add age-verification protections to all phones and tablets sold in the UK. They will face financial penalties if they fail to do so. The UK Home Office said: “Nothing is off the table, and as a last resort we are exploring criminal liability for tech bosses who fail to comply.”
Starmer said the move would make Britain the “first country in the world to make it impossible for children to take, share or view nude images,” a claim that assumes nudity-detection algorithms will work reliably on every device, something no current system has demonstrated. It also has the potential to make the UK one of the most stringent countries in the world for age verification for both private nude images and porn.
Currently in the UK porn age verification laws focus on porn sites and services rather than nude images sent privately. In July 2025 the government made it the legal responsibility of porn sites to verify that users were adults, resulting in sites such as Pornhub introducing access restrictions. This sits on top of a decade of false starts: the UK’s original porn block was delayed repeatedly before being scrapped, and Ofcom’s first enforcement fines came in at a token level before scaling up.
Pornhub’s parent company Aylo has spent years lobbying tech firms and authorities to push age verification onto devices rather than sites, which would move the compliance burden, and the reputational heat, off Pornhub. Aylo had a victory of sorts recently when Apple’s new iOS update introduced device-level age verification for some iPhone users, though Ofcom was notably unconvinced it satisfied UK rules.
Although there’s no indication that any new laws will diminish sites’ age verification legal responsibilities, a blanket law requiring age verification for nude image access on all UK-sold devices could allow Aylo to reconsider recent moves such as blocking unverified UK Pornhub users from the site.
Meanwhile, adults in the UK face the prospect of having to verify their age before sending or receiving nudes on messaging platforms such as WhatsApp. This comes with serious privacy concerns, including the prospect of tech companies processing the personal information of millions of adults in order to verify they are allowed to view genitals. We’ve repeatedly covered how these schemes fail in practice, from the EU’s ‘porn passport’ demo that shipped with bypassable biometrics to UK age checks users reported simply didn’t work.
With the government yet to reveal what a genital image block would entail, the ultimatum and legal threat raise obvious questions about overreach.
Would historic art images featuring nudity, that a child might need to view as part of project work, be blocked by device-level image blocks? Would the software be sophisticated enough not to block medical images viewed for legitimate health reasons?
Silkie Carlo, director of civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: “The Government’s plan very likely means that unless you submit to intrusive identity checks when setting up your phone or computer, there will be a chokehold on your software and internet access leaving you with a child-locked device.”
Carlo added: “The Government mandating that all phones in Britain require ID and surveillance software is a crossing of the Rubicon that would make the UK one of the most authoritarian internet regimes in the world.”
A Google spokesperson told BBC News: “We are working constructively with UK partners to find effective, privacy-preserving solutions that deter the spread of harmful content while ensuring a safe digital environment for young people.”
The government’s Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said: “No parent should have to worry that giving their child a smartphone opens the door to abuse and exploitation.”
Kendall added: “We are holding social media platforms to account and will soon announce our next steps to keep children safe online. But this doesn’t stop with platforms; the devices themselves are part of the problem – and they can be part of the solution.”
