UK’s Latest Online Safety Proposal Would Further Erode Privacy and Free Speech

The UK is poised to double down on an online safety strategy that sacrifices user privacy and free expression. Less than a year after the children’s safety provisions of its controversial Online Safety Act went into effect, Prime Minister Keir Starmer instructed Apple and Google on June 8, 2026, to install software on children’s mobile devices that blocks explicit images. If businesses do not comply within three months, the UK intends to move forward with legislation requiring companies to comply. While well-intentioned, this proposal—like the Online Safety Act—threatens users’ privacy and anonymity, which in turn threatens free speech. The UK should pursue more targeted measures that protect children online without giving up privacy and free speech.

The UK’s proposal to require nudity-scanning software on children’s devices carries several risks. First, the requirement would force all devices to block users from taking or sharing explicit images unless the users are verified adults. Depending on how age verification occurs, this requirement could force users to turn over personal information and sacrifice their anonymity in order to access or share certain digital content. A better approach would allow device owners to lock down a device in a “child mode”—for example, a parent could do this before giving a device to a child—rather than forcing adult users to verify their age.

Second, the UK’s proposal likely will result in over-censoring content, making it more difficult for children, and potentially users of all ages, to access certain content. For example, can children view artistic content depicting nudity, such as images of Michelangelo’s statue of David or Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus”? Can they view anatomically accurate educational materials? Not every family will agree on what constitutes an “explicit image.” Outside of black-and-white examples, such as minors exchanging explicit images with predators, parents should be the ones to draw those lines, not the government.

This mimics one of the Online Safety Act’s fatal flaws: The Act requires any online service that enables users to post content and interact with others—a large swath of the Internet, including social media platforms, online forums, online gaming services, streaming services, message boards, knowledge-sharing websites, review websites, and any website with a comments section—to scan for and remove illegal content.

Requirements to scan for and remove certain content can easily lead to general monitoring of all user-generated content. Companies that want to comply with these requirements may feel obligated to scan all content, which means no longer offering end-to-end encrypted communications, an important tool for online safety, privacy, and security that ensures that only the sender and recipient can view the encrypted content. End-to-end encryption is essential for many people, including victims of abuse, LGBTQ individuals, and journalists and their confidential sources. Restrictions on secure communications would chill free speech.

There is no 100-percent effective method of protecting children online. Even the most restrictive, invasive methods are not 100-percent effective, and they come at the cost of privacy and free expression. The UK should rely on targeted measures that take a scalpel to the issue instead of a sledgehammer, and better balance privacy, free speech, and children’s safety. Such measures include increasing enforcement of online crimes against children, giving parents and children greater insight into online services’ safety features and more options to customize them, including features that censor explicit images, and relying on opt-in age checks instead of universal age verification to protect children from age-inappropriate content until the UK develops a secure, privacy-protective digital ID available to all of its residents. Otherwise, the UK will continue to serve as a cautionary tale for the rest of the world.