Apple Rolls Out Communication Safety in Messages to the UK and Other Countries

Apple's Communication Safety in Messages

Apple has rolled out its Communication Safety in Messages feature to the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The feature can be enabled on children’s iPhones after updating to iOS 15.5.

CSAM Now Available in Five Countries

The Apple Post confirmed the availability of the Communication Safety in Messages feature in the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. This brought the total number of countries supporting the feature to five including the U.S. Apple made the feature available in the U.S. last year in iOS 15.2. The report said that users residing in the covered countries will see a mention of the feature when updating to iOS 15.5.

Communication Safety in Messages – Review

As a review, Communication Safety in Messages allows parents to turn on warnings for their children’s iPhones. The iPhone Messages app will detect if a child receives or tries to send a photo containing nudity. If the child receives such images, the app will automatically blur the offending content. If the child tries to view the photo, the app will display guidance to help the child decide whether to proceed or not.

On the other hand, if a child tries to send a photo with nudity, the app will trigger an option to “message a grown-up.” The app will also encourage the child not to send the photo.

How to Set Up Communication Safety in Messages

By default, Apple has disabled Communication Safety in Messages. To set it up, the child’s iPhone should be a part of an iCloud Family Sharing account. Parents can enable Communication Safety in Messages at any time at the Screen Time settings of the child’s account. Simply go to Settings > Screen time > Tap the name of the child > Communication Safety > Continue. Then turn on Check for Sensitive Photos.

It should be noted that Communication Safety in Messages scans photos on the device. This means all content sent via iMessage will remain encrypted end-to-end. Apple has no way of seeing the photos or the results of the analysis done by the app.

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