A chatbot ban that could leave children with no one to turn to at 2am
The government's children's technology consultation closes tonight. More than 45,000 people responded. The decision that follows will determine whether safeguarding tools that children use in the middle of the night survive the same regulations designed to shut down the products exploiting them.
Almost one in five British teenagers say they have no one they can talk to. CAMHS has more than 385,000 children waiting for a first appointment. UK police recorded almost 37,000 child sexual abuse image crimes in 2025, an eight per cent rise on the previous year. Sextortion reports involving under-18s rose 34 per cent in a single year, with boys aged 14 to 17 now accounting for 98 per cent of victims. The Internet Watch Foundation identified 3,443 AI-generated child sexual abuse videos in 2025, a 26,385 per cent rise on the year before. It is against that backdrop that the government's Growin