In the UK, the government is considering banning the sale of smartphones to children: this article in the Daily Telegraph explains why

Children as young as three are being tricked into producing online sexual images of themselves, a report has found, as the Security Minister warns “no child is safe if unsupervised online”.

Three- to six-year-olds are being manipulated by “opportunistic” predators who strike while the children are online on phones and devices often used within the family home, according to the research, the first of its kind, by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF).

The findings will fuel demands for a Government ban on the sale of smartphones to children under the age of 16 after research by the regulator Ofcom found nearly a quarter of five- to seven-year-olds now have their own smartphone.

The IWF, a charity whose experts work to identify and remove child abuse content, has uncovered thousands of self-generated images by children that are now being found on the open internet. In 2023 they found 275,655 webpages containing child sexual abuse.

In an exclusive article for The Telegraph, Tom Tugendhat, the Security Minister, said the findings “proved two things beyond doubt: more needs to be done to protect children online, and no child is safe if unsupervised online”.

Mr Tugendhat said the Government would take further tougher action if tech firms failed to remove sex abuse images and did not prevent children from accessing harmful content on their sites – as they will be required to do under the Online Safety Act.

“Tech companies should not wait for Ofcom fines before they protect their users. It’s not acceptable for tech executives to make vast profits from their youngest users while failing to protect them. They have the expertise and the resources. Now they need to step up and take action,” he said.

“If tech companies do not do more to stop this activity, the Government will go further. We will not stand by and let any company – no matter how big and powerful – put children at risk.”

Ministers are currently considering whether children under 16 could be banned from buying mobile phones in an attempt to protect young people from the harmful effects of social media.

Data from Ofcom last week showed that around a third of children aged between five and seven used social media without parental supervision.

Miriam Cates, co-chair of the New Conservative group of MPs, said: “We have rigorous safeguarding checks for anyone who wants to work in a school and yet smartphones allow predators and paedophiles directly into the bedrooms of our very youngest children.

“It’s not good enough to pretend that six-year-olds just need to be ‘better educated’ as if they are somehow responsible for allowing themselves to be abused. Smartphones are not safe for children and the Government needs to act swiftly.”

The IWF said opportunistic internet predators were directing children remotely and often recording them without their knowledge before sharing it on dedicated child sexual abuse websites. 

The online safety organisation said it showed the need for more protections online and that platforms needed to act immediately rather than waiting for new regulations, such as the Online Safety Act, to take effect. In its annual report, the IWF said it had discovered more Category A child sexual abuse material online than ever before. This material contains the most severe kinds of sexual abuse.

It took action to remove 51,369 of the webpages that contained Category A child sexual abuse material in 2022, double the number from 2020.

Proportionally, Category A material now accounts for 20 per cent of all the content the IWF sees – up from 18 per cent in 2021, and 17 per cent in 2020.

Susie Hargreaves, chief executive of the IWF, said: “The opportunistic criminals who want to manipulate your children into disturbing acts of sexual abuse are not a distant threat – they are trying to talk to them now on phones and devices you can find in any family home.

“If children under six are being targeted like this, we need to be having age-appropriate conversations, now, to make sure they know how to spot the dangers. A whole society approach is needed.”