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A hot potato: Signal has issued a warning over the UK government’s latest online safety push. The encrypted messaging app says plans to make phones and tablets scan for nude images will not protect children, and instead risk creating surveillance infrastructure that “endangers us all.”
The device-scanning proposal was announced by Prime Minister Keir Starmer at London Tech Week. Under the plan, companies such as Apple and Google would be expected to activate built-in features on smartphones and tablets that detect and block nude images on children’s devices.
The government wants the protections applied across an entire device, including cameras, third-party apps, search functions, and messaging services.
Apple already offers a version of this through its Communication Safety feature, which uses on-device machine learning to detect nude photos and videos, blur the content, and warn children before they view or send it. The company recently previewed expanded child safety tools at WWDC, though the UK proposal appears to go further by making the approach mandatory and pushing it beyond Apple’s own ecosystem.
Adults would still be able to take, view, or share nude content, but only after passing age verification. If tech firms do not act within three months, the government says it will bring forward legislation, with fines for companies and possible criminal liability for executives.
The stated goal is to prevent grooming, sextortion, and children’s access to pornography. The Home Office says 91% of online child sexual abuse reports recorded in 2024 involved self-generated content, while the average child now views pornography by age 13.
In a statement titled “Surveillance Is Not Safety,” Signal said forcing UK residents to prove their age or have content scanned simply to communicate is a dangerous proposition.
Even if scanning takes place on-device, Signal argues that the system would normalize inspecting private content before it can be sent or viewed.
Supporters of client-side scanning have long argued that it protects privacy because images are checked locally rather than uploaded to a server.
However, critics say that once phones are required to inspect content for one category of material, the same system can be expanded to whatever governments deem “threats” or “harmful content.”
“We know that mass surveillance and censorship capabilities, however sincere-sounding the promises of those who initiate them are, never remain narrowly scoped,” Signal wrote.
Signal also warned that the system would strengthen the control Apple, Google, and Microsoft already have over users’ most personal information. The company said real child safety should mean better-funded education, stronger social services, and meaningful guardrails around AI platforms, not default scanning on every device.
The UK has repeatedly pushed some of the toughest online safety rules in the West. WhatsApp and Signal previously said they would rather leave the United Kingdom than weaken encryption under the Online Safety Bill. More recently, the Online Safety Act’s age-checking rules forced adult sites to demand selfies, IDs, credit cards, or other proof of age, prompting a surge in VPN use and creative workarounds.
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