A belated change of policy on nude digital images of children must be part of a wider reset
Amid the flurry of resignations by ministers who said they had lost confidence in Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership, Jess Phillips’s attack on his record on tech regulation stood out. “Over a year ago I presented solutions, long worked on by brilliant civil servants, that would end the ability for children in the UK to take naked images of themselves,” she wrote. The postponement of an announcement in March left her frustrated. In the end, all that Ms Phillips managed to secure was a pledge that the law might change sometime.
Other campaigners echoed her frustration. Hannah Swirsky, head of policy at the Internet Watch Foundation, agreed that the government had been slow to act, despite the rise in offences involving self‑generated explicit imagery.
