Child phone nudity law could largely end online child sexual abuse if widely adopted, Jess Phillips claims - as it happened

Former safeguarding minister says if ban came into force properly it could ‘basically eliminate’ problem Jess Phillips, the former safeguarding minister, told the World at One that she believed that Google and Apple, the two companies that control the operating systems on almost all smartphones that are sold, could very quickly install the software that would stop them being used by children to take naked pictures. But she said, having worked on this issue for about 18 months (see 12.19pm), she had heard “every single corner-cutting excuse, work-around in the book from tech companies and those who seek to represent them” and so she expected further foot-dragging. She said she would like to contribute to drafting the legislation to force them to act if they do not do so voluntarily. She went on to say she would only believe the ban was actually happening when “a child picks up their phone, tries to take a naked image of themselves because they’ve been groomed to do it, and they won’t be able to do it”. But, if the ban does come into force, it could be tranformational, she said. Referring to figures showing that 91% of online child sexual abuse reports refer to self-generated content