Smartphone for children uses AI to block nudes

AI-powered smartphone designed for youths blocks explicit content

A new AI-driven smartphone designed for youths will block any sexual or explicit material being sent from or to the phone, regardless of encryption or the use of a VPN.

Finnish phone-maker HMD Global, best known for reviving the Nokia brand, has entered a new niche in the smartphone market—devices made exclusively for children. The company has unveiled the HMD Fuse, a smartphone designed with built-in artificial intelligence that promises to block all nude or inappropriate content, making it the first of its kind globally.

A pioneering step in online child protection

It is the first smartphone that protects a child’s innocence by stopping nude content from being filmed, seen, shared and stored. Launched – so far – exclusively with Vodafone in the UK, the HMD Fuse protected with HarmBlock+ marks a watershed moment in digital parenting and online safety.

The HMD Fuse protected with HarmBlock+ is a new ‘stepping stone’ smartphone for families designed to tackle the growing online safety crisis for children while providing a first-of-its kind solution for parents. Designed to keep children safer online with built-in, operating system-level parental controls and AI-powered harm-blocking technology for real-time protection from nude content, the HMD Fuse arrives at a time when cyberbullying and online stranger danger is soaring amongst UK children.

Why a product like that

Why did HMD decide to create such a product? According to the company, the idea came from The Better Phone Project, HMD’s largest to date co-design initiative, which consulted over 37,000 parents and children globally. The study revealed a growing demand for  smartphones that offer greater digital supervision, with parents voicing concerns over children’s exposure to unsafe online content and the risks associated with social media. The parentsì message was clear: “there is no device on the market we fully trust to keep our children safe online.”  With safety apps often easy to bypass, families needed something more robust, more intelligent, and far more intentional. They need a phone that grows with their child.

How it works

The parental controls allow app management; parents can approve or block apps, set daily usage limits for each app, and even schedule screen-free times for specific activities like bedtime or study time. It also allows for real-time location tracking with location history and safe zone alerts helps parents keep track of their child’s whereabouts. In addition parents can whitelist trusted contacts, limiting calls and messages to approved individuals, enhancing communication safety.

HarmBlock AI

A world-first AI, HarmBlock is a brilliant example of using tech for good. It is embedded deep into the phone’s operating system (it’s not an app or on the cloud) so it can’t be bypassed or disabled. It’s a first-of-its-kind AI protection system, ethically trained on over 22 million harmful images. The camera helps prevent children sending nude content, stopping sexual photos or videos from being captured. HarmBlock AI operates locally, offline, on any app, camera, website, or message. It is tamper-proof, privacy-centric (no user data, including photos, videos, or browsing history, is shared outside the device), and impossible to circumvent.

HarmBlock+ can’t be removed, tricked, or worked around. It doesn’t collect personal data. It just protects every time, across every app, including VPNs, with zero loopholes.

Designed to grow with the child

Unlike any smartphone before it, the HMD Fuse protected with HarmBlock+ is designed to evolve with the child, guided by an advanced parental control system. Parents can choose to add or remove any application from the device (even the camera). So with the HMD Fuse protected with HarmBlock+ the child can start their digital journey using this smartphone as a “brick phone” with calls, texts, and location tracking only. Over time, they can gradually unlock features like music apps and eventually controlled web access and messaging apps.

Every step is a conversation between parent and child. And HarmBlock+ is there the entire time, quietly protecting in the background. This phone is not just giving kids access to technology, it’s heloing teaching them how to navigate it safely.

The pressure – and the risks – on children

Research reveals the crisis at hand: in a recent Vodafone survey which found 1 in 5 of secondary school aged children (11-17) have felt pressured into sharing an explicit image of themselves. For many who shared images, the emotional impact was instant, with 36% experiencing immediate regret, and 28% anxious it might fall into the wrong hands. Nearly two thirds (63%) later discovered that their images or videos had been forwarded without their consent, with 27% of young people saying they’d seen explicit images of someone at their school via a friend’s device.