Police chiefs demand curbs on children's social media access
The National Police Chiefs’ Council and the National Crime Agency have issued an unprecedented joint call for restrictions on under-16s’ access to social media and other online platforms, warning that the current digital environment hands criminals “industrial-scale access” to child victims.
The statement, published jointly last week, stops short of demanding a blanket ban on named apps. Instead, it calls on ministers to target the specific design features that enable offending such as unrestricted messaging from unknown adults, algorithmic systems that surface children to potential abusers, and weak age verification that is routinely bypassed by both children and adults.
The agencies named Snapchat, Instagram, Discord, TikTok, Telegram, Kik, X and Roblox as platforms where the highest-risk features are commonly found, while stressing the list is not exhaustive and that any platform incorporating those features poses a risk regardless of its name.
The statement says there are an estimated 840,000 adults in the UK who pose a sexual risk to children. Referrals related to child sexual abuse from online platforms to the NCA reached almost 100,000 in 2025. Across UK policing, around 1,000 offenders are arrested and approximately 1,200 children safeguarded every month, figures the agencies describe as evidence that enforcement alone cannot keep pace with what platform design makes possible.
Among the most striking recommendations is a call for children’s devices to be blocked from taking, sharing, viewing or receiving nude images – a measure that would require intervention at operating system level rather than within individual apps. The statement also calls for robust identity-based age verification at account creation, automatic child-appropriate settings, and mechanisms to lock restricted features and re-verify age when an account behaves inconsistently with a child’s profile.
The agencies argue that a feature-based approach creates immediate commercial consequences for non-compliant platforms in a way that regulatory enforcement through Ofcom cannot. Under the Online Safety Act, investigations and fines can take years.
Crucially, the NPCC and NCA are explicit that children must never be criminalised for abuse they experience online, and that a child who reports being coerced into sharing images should receive support, not consequences for having bypassed age checks.
The statement represents a significant escalation in tone from Britain’s law enforcement leadership, and amounts to direct pressure on ministers to act ahead of any further regulatory process. Whether the government treats it as political cover for legislation or as one voice among many in an already crowded debate remains to be seen.