"the online environment in its current form is not safe for children."
UK police chiefs have called for children to be blocked from accessing social, AI and gaming apps that fail to disable “high-risk” features such as private messaging.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) and the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said under-16s should be barred from platforms that allow contact from strangers, harmful content recommendations, or nude image sharing.
The joint position has been submitted in response to the government’s consultation on whether to restrict social media access for under-16s.
Ministers are considering options ranging from age limits and app curfews to full bans.
A government spokesperson said tech firms must protect children online, backing regulator Ofcom “to act against those who fail to comply”.
The spokesperson added: “We are going further – consulting on options from age limits and app curfews to outright bans.
“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.”
NCA director general Graeme Biggar said the situation had become critical, warning:
“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. Enough is enough.”
Chief constable Gavin Stephens, chair of the NPCC, said the online world had become “something of a wild west” where law and regulation had not kept pace with technology.
Both agencies said they still support children accessing the internet safely and benefiting from it, but argue current systems are failing.
The proposals fall short of an Australia-style ban on under-16s using social media, according to Biggar.
The NCA and NPCC identified six platform features they say enable “harm at-scale” and should be removed from services used by children.
These include mass discoverability of children, unrestricted contact from unknown adults, private or encrypted messaging, and algorithms that promote harmful or illegal content.
They also include nude image sharing or streaming, and weak age verification systems that allow access to adult spaces.
Many of these risks are already addressed within the Online Safety Act, enforced by Ofcom through investigations and fines for non-compliance.
However, police say stronger legislation is needed to prevent under-16s from accessing platforms with these features at all.
They also want Ofcom to enforce age limits more effectively and introduce device-level nudity controls to stop under-18s taking, sharing, or streaming explicit images.
Biggar said the NCA received 92,000 reports of potential child sexual abuse activity online in 2025 from tech firms, with numbers rising and offending becoming more severe.
He said: “They involve younger and younger children and we are increasingly seeing children offending as well as being victims.”
He also said the problem had worsened because tech companies had not made child safety “a core design principle”.
Stephens added:
“This refusal to prioritise safety by design is boosting criminals’ speed and reach.”
Some platforms, including Instagram and Apple, have introduced tools aimed at reducing sextortion risks by limiting nude image sharing in messages.
TikTok has said it has no plans to introduce certain encryption changes, while concerns remain over safety protections for younger users.
Former minister Jess Phillips has previously criticised delays in implementing stronger safeguards within government policy.
Charities have also warned that end-to-end encryption in messaging apps could make it harder to detect grooming and child abuse.
However, some experts and campaigners argue encrypted private messaging remains essential for privacy and digital security, even for younger users.
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