UK police chiefs call for under-16s to be blocked from apps with high-risk features

Children should be prevented from accessing social media, artificial intelligence and gaming apps that do not disable "high-risk" features such as private messaging, UK police chiefs have said.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) and the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) have called for platforms that fail to prevent children from being contacted by strangers, that recommend harmful content, or that allow the sharing of nude photographs, to be banned for those aged under 16.

The joint statement was issued in response to the government's consultation on whether to introduce an outright ban on social media for under-16s, and comes as technology platforms have been making pledges to improve child safety.

Government response

The government said technology firms have a duty to protect children online and that it backs regulator Ofcom "to act against those who fail to comply."

"We are going further - consulting on options from age limits and app curfews to outright bans," a government spokesperson said. "We also remain committed to making it impossible for children in the UK to take, share or view nude images, and are working at pace to deliver this."

'Enough is enough'

NCA director general Graeme Biggar said "our assessment is clear: the online environment in its current form is not safe for children."

"The industry response has been too slow, while the problem has been getting worse," he said in a statement. "Enough is enough."

Chief constable Gavin Stephens, chair of the NPCC, added that the online sphere had become "something of a wild west" in which law and regulation had "failed to keep up with the pace of technology."

Biggar said both agencies would prefer children to be able to participate online safely and benefit from what it offers, and noted that their proposals stop short of an Australia-style ban on social media for under-16s.

The government recently pledged to introduce some form of social media restrictions for under-16s, even if it fell short of a complete ban.

Six features that enable 'harm at-scale'

The NCA and NPCC identified six platform features they believe enable "harm at-scale" and which should not be present on apps or services used by children.

Many of these features are already addressed under the Online Safety Act — a body of rules and accompanying codes with which platforms must comply in order to operate in the United Kingdom. Ofcom has the power to investigate and fine companies suspected of breaching those rules.

However, police are calling on the government to go further and legislate to prevent under-16s from accessing any platform or app that offers features deemed "high-risk."

The agencies also want Ofcom to be granted the power to effectively enforce platforms' minimum age policies, and to mandate the introduction of device-level nudity controls so that those under 18 cannot take, share or stream nude images or videos.

Rising reports of child sexual abuse

Biggar said that in 2025, the NCA received 92,000 reports of potential child sexual abuse activity online from technology companies, and that the number was continuing to grow — with offences becoming increasingly severe.

"They involve younger and younger children and we are increasingly seeing children offending as well as being victims," he said.

He argued the problem had worsened because technology firms had chosen not to make child safety "a core design principle."

"This refusal to prioritise safety by design is boosting criminals' speed and reach," Stephens added.

Industry action and ongoing debates

Some platforms, including Instagram and Apple, have taken steps to combat a reported rise in sextortion by introducing technology aimed at preventing children from seeing or sending nude images in private messages.

Instagram recently disabled end-to-end encryption for direct messages on its platform, whilst TikTok told the BBC it has "no plans" to introduce the feature.

Nonetheless, some charities have raised concerns about end-to-end encrypted messaging, warning that making messages readable only to the sender and recipient could hinder efforts to detect and address child abuse and grooming.

At the same time, some experts and campaigners argue that private messaging remains a vital tool for preserving online privacy and personal data.

The measures proposed by the NCA and NPCC had previously been put forward as part of the government's violence against women and girls strategy.

Former minister Jess Phillips has recently accused the government of being slow to implement them.