Jess Phillips calls for on-device blocking of abuse images

Jess Phillips, a former safeguarding minister, has called on the government to back technology that blocks the live-streaming of child sexual abuse. She wants the blocking extended to child sexual abuse material, meaning images and videos of child abuse, on every device sold in Britain. Phillips said device-level blockers can prevent such material being filmed and viewed on smartphones, laptops and tablets.

The software she has in mind would use artificial intelligence to classify known child abuse images within a phone's operating system, the core software that runs the device. It would block the material when it is viewed or created, whatever app is in use. The proposal is for the technology to be extended, not a measure that is already in place across devices.

Lord Nash, a Conservative peer and former minister, has also urged the government to extend on-device blocking to every device sold in Britain, targeting the same material. [Lord Nash's call and Phillips's call are both proposals made to the government.]

The scale of the problem was set out in several figures. The National Crime Agency has flagged the UK as the third biggest market in the world for live-streamed child sexual abuse. Internet Watch Foundation research from 2025 found that three-quarters of child sexual abuse material was not self-generated, but likely captured on adult devices. Separate research by Childlight found that 1.8 million men in the UK had admitted to some form of online sexual offending against children.

On the legal side, the government has legislated to require tech firms such as Apple and Google to block under-18s from taking or sharing nude images on smartphones and other devices. Apple and Google develop the operating systems of most smartphones used in the UK.