IWF backs government move requiring tech companies to urgently implement nudity detection and blocking on children’s devices.
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has thrown its support behind the UK government’s demand for tech companies to better protect children with on-device safeguards, calling the move pivotal among a raft of much-needed measures in the battle against child sexual abuse material.
The call to implement on-device nudity detection and blocking on children’s devices is one of several measures the IWF has recommended along with other child protection organisations in the Foundation’s response to the government’s recent national consultation on children’s online safety.
Enforced nudity detection on children’s devices would have an instant and positive impact by preventing the generation of new child sexual abuse content, says the IWF, an international not-for-profit organisation which operates Europe’s largest centre for assessing, grading and securing the removal of child sexual abuse material online.
Since 2012 the IWF has been raising the alarm about the grooming and coercion of children leading to ‘self-generated’* material, whereby a child or children appear in sexual abuse imagery without a perpetrator physically present. The consequences of the abuse and subsequent sharing of the content online can be devastating for the children and the families involved.
Last year (2025), the IWF took action on a record 311,610 reports where analysts confirmed the presence of child sexual abuse material. Of these, 266,397 reports contained at least one ‘self-generated’ image or video. This is 85% of all the reports actioned.
This equates to 111,610 individual images (25% of every single image confirmed as criminal) and 28,666 videos (45% of every single video confirmed as criminal).
18% (or 25,092) of these images and videos were Category A – the most extreme category of sexual abuse in the UK which can include rape, sadism or bestiality.
Ngaire Alexander, IWF Head of Hotline, said: “In the Hotline we see how children are groomed and coerced online into creating and sharing nude and sexual images of themselves, which can then start a spiral of abuse.
“These images or videos are recorded by someone, or many people who are not physically within the home, but who could be anywhere in the world.
“Now imagine if we had a world where internet connected devices simply didn’t allow sexual images to be captured and transferred. We could save a child from so much trauma, shame and humiliation. A world of pain could be prevented.”
The IWF’s consultation response set out urgent recommendations to tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation online, including device-level protections, and highlighted that no single intervention is enough.
IWF CEO Kerry Smith said: “On-device protections are a pivotal part of coordinated, multi-layered approach to safeguarding children online. An alarming amount of child sexual abuse material, which our analysts see every day, is self-generated by children as a result of grooming, coercion or manipulation. We need device-level detection and blocking alongside platform-level protections.
“That is why we warmly welcome the government’s announcement and see these protections as playing a powerful role in a whole-system response to the threats children face in digital spaces. With nudity blocking in place, it will make it much harder to create new images and videos of child sexual abuse and better protect children from harms on the internet.”
