Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

UK Wants All iPhones to Block Explicit Images Unless You Prove Age

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
70,342
41,950


Apple and Google will soon be "encouraged" to build nudity-detection algorithms into their software by default, as part of the UK government's strategy to tackle violence against women and girls, reports the Financial Times.

Child-Safety-Feature-Purple.jpg

According to the report, Home Office officials want device operating systems to prevent any nudity from being displayed unless users can verify that they're adults through biometric checks or official ID.

The proposal is said to target mobile devices initially, but it could extend to desktops. The government reportedly explored making the controls mandatory for devices sold in the UK, but it has apparently decided against that approach for now.

Apple currently offers Communication Safety tools that parents can activate and which detect nude photos and videos in apps like Messages, AirDrop, and FaceTime. However, teenagers can still view flagged images after dismissing an alert, while under-13s must enter a passcode.

Google also provides parental controls through its Family Link feature and includes "sensitive content warnings" in Google Messages. But neither company offers system-wide nudity blocking that extends to third-party apps like WhatsApp.

The proposal is sure to face objections from privacy and civil liberties groups, as well as questions about how effective any such measures would be. When the UK instituted age checks for porn websites earlier this year as part of the Online Safety Act, users got around restrictions using fake photos and VPN services.

The proposals are expected to be officially unveiled in the coming days, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke to FT.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: UK Wants All iPhones to Block Explicit Images Unless You Prove Age
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/12/15/uk-pushes-apple-block-explicit-images/
I understand the reasoning, but when my spouse and I want to share explicit photos of ourselves with each other, will our devices be scanning them and requiring Face ID each time? Or is it just a one time verification process?
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Gasu E. and that be me
I heard about this a few days ago, it is an ideology of everyone is guilty unless they can prove otherwise in order to catch a tiny minority.

They are also passing legislation for databases to be kept on children and their details. It is really deep dystopian Orwellian stuff. Being forced on us Brits by a truly psychotic liberalist ideological mindset.

I expect they only reason they made it voluntary is because the manufactures told them where to go if they made it mandatory, and that they would leave the UK market squarely pointing the blame at the UK government.

Oh they also want those 'protection' systems to be implemented by service providers of cellular and fibre networks too.

But the end goal is to have total digital ID control of the citizens, your EVERY move WILL be tracked by Ai, and you will only receive money in digital form and part of the punishment for you doing thinking or saying ANYTHING not State approved, will be restriction of your money or services to you. It is in the WEF plan.
They want to desperately copy Chinas socialist system and take it a step further.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: tonyob, pidoras, Mr.Ben and 2 others
All governments want digital ID and they’ll use any boogieman to get it. They want to track you. They want to know every time you access anything and what you’re doing. Porn is a great one to lock behind a tracking system because then you can blackmail potential opposition because they watched some raunchy video.
 
  • Like
Reactions: pidoras, FatLouie, applesith and 3 others
My ex-partner was from East Germany. They know how this ends a few steps down the line. First we have approval, then we have verification and then we have life-ruining persecution by the state on moral and political thought. It then ends in serious culture defining trust issues against the state and corporations working under their umbrella that lasts decades. Society will be repelled from technology. Analogue methods will become favoured for personal matters.

1765802890645.png
 
  • Like
Reactions: pizzzle, Mr.Ben, Stevez67 and 7 others
The UK government is trying to build infrastructure for total surveillance and control and this "think of the children!" is their attempt to sell it through fear and moral urgency.

Make no mistake, this is NOT primarily about safety. It's about creating technical and legal precedent for mandatory device-level biometric identification, real-time content monitoring at OS level, linking identity to every digital action, and normalizing "verify who you are to see anything"
 
Last edited:
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: pidoras, Mr.Ben, Asthmatic Kitty and 5 others
macmyworld said:
All photos that are flagged will be sent to high-level government officials who will personally review them. I’m kidding of course, but where is Monty Python when you need them
Click to expand...

Not kidding it'll be flagged and a state controlled Ai will check the photos. Why else has the UK government approved 50 new Ai data centre super buildings to be built across the UK, of course that is IF they can power them with solar and wind power as that is all we have practically now.....
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: cjsuk and Huck
TheColtr said:
All governments want digital ID and they’ll use any boogieman to get it. They want to track you. They want to know every time you access anything and what you’re doing. Porn is a great one to lock behind a tracking system because then you can blackmail potential opposition because they watched some raunchy video.
Click to expand...
or if you bought to much skin oil
(c) Piddy
 
Ah yes the old trading your freedom for security ploy. It never ends well for those who lack the ability to use brutal force to gain compliance.
 
Jokes asides, this is bs. Cuz right now you can use cloudflare dns on any devices and restrict porn easily from the cloudflare settings. You can do it literally on any devices.
 
CATiNTHESTORE said:
Jokes asides, this is bs. Cuz right now you can use cloudflare dns on any devices and restrict porn easily from the cloudflare settings. You can do it literally on any devices.
Click to expand...
Cloudflare DNS would only stop you accessing inappropriate websites. This proposal does some sort of scanning in real time of anything on your phone like nude texts and facetimes, etc.
 
wanha said:
The UK government is trying to build infrastructure for total surveillance and control and this "think of the children!" is their attempt to sell it through fear and moral urgency.

Make no mistake, this is NOT primarily about safety. It's about creating technical and legal precedent for mandatory device-level biometric identification, real-time content monitoring at OS level, linking identity to every digital action, and normalizing "verify who you are to see anything"
Click to expand...
Well, speaking of children, I heard Buckingham Palace being under a bit of a scrutiny lately.
 
  • Haha
  • Like
Reactions: UliBaer, IIGS User and cjsuk
Havalo said:
Gave them an inch and look at UK now…
Click to expand...

xxFoxtail said:
I understand the reasoning, but when my spouse and I want to share explicit photos of ourselves with each other, will our devices be scanning them and requiring Face ID each time? Or is it just a one time verification process?
Click to expand...
Well you can all thank Apple for their proposed service to do private and secure on device scanning a few years back to the whole globe…. Before they slowly realized the harm they just unleashed and how unworkable it was.

Edit:
www.macrumors.com

Apple Introducing New Child Safety Features, Including Scanning Users' Photo Libraries for Known Sexual Abuse Material

Apple today previewed new child safety features that will be coming to its platforms with software updates later this year. The company said the features will be available in the U.S. only at launch and will be expanded to other regions over time. Communication Safety First, the Messages app on...
www.macrumors.com www.macrumors.com
 
digimc said:
Ah yes the old trading your freedom for security ploy. It never ends well for those who lack the ability to use brutal force to gain compliance.
Click to expand...

It usually goes wrong pretty quickly. It doesn’t scale. You need people to enforce it. And quickly they find there’s personal consequences. Eventually everyone knows someone impacted and they turn.

Next thing you know their bosses are shredding all the paperwork while trying to work out whether they should be shooting their citizens or not. If they shoot them it’s over. If they don’t it’s over.

It just sucks living through the 10-20 years of it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: turbineseaplane
Sophisticatednut said:
Well you can all thank Apple for their proposed service to do private and secure on device scanning a few years back to the whole globe…. Before they slowly realized the harm they just unleashed and how unworkable it was.

Edit:
www.macrumors.com

Apple Introducing New Child Safety Features, Including Scanning Users' Photo Libraries for Known Sexual Abuse Material

Apple today previewed new child safety features that will be coming to its platforms with software updates later this year. The company said the features will be available in the U.S. only at launch and will be expanded to other regions over time. Communication Safety First, the Messages app on...
www.macrumors.com www.macrumors.com
Click to expand...

I don’t think they wanted to do that. The had external and internal lobbying. They had to let it out so it’d burn in public.

If you look at the ADP situation in the UK in comparison.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back