Jess Phillips calls for device-level blocks to prevent CSAM live streaming

Former safeguarding minister Jess Phillips has joined campaigners and law enforcement leaders in calling for the UK government to demand device-level blocking technology across all smartphones, laptops, and tablets to stop the live-streaming of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

Speaking at a parliamentary policy launch alongside abuse survivors, Phillips urged ministers to extend existing legislation, which currently requires operating system developers such as Apple and Google to block under-18s from capturing or sharing nude imagery, to all devices sold in the UK. The Labour MP, who resigned in May over delays to tackling CSAM, argued that restricting the software to children's devices fails to address the source of the abuse, citing 2025 Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) research showing three-quarters of CSAM is likely recorded on adult devices.

The proposed software uses artificial intelligence (AI) trained against a database of known abuse imagery to detect and block CSAM directly within a device's operating system at the point of creation or viewing, regardless of the application used. Campaigners stressed, however, that scans remaining strictly on-device without logging, storing, or transmitting data preserve user privacy and encryption.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) has identified the UK as the third-largest market globally for live-streamed child abuse, with Phil Eccles of the NCA warning the crisis cannot be resolved through arrests alone without technology industry cooperation. Further evidence from Childlight indicates a staggering 1.8 million British men admit to online child sexual offending, while Ofcom found offenders search for CSAM almost as frequently on mainstream applications as on the dark web. Conservative peer Lord Nash backed the cross-party push, arguing CSAM must be blocked on devices before children are harmed.

In a statement responding to the news, Jack Coulson, head of advocacy at Big Brother Watch, said: "Genuine child protection requires well-resourced, targeted policing and robust enforcement of the law, not the scanning of every phone in Britain."

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