Statutory Safeguarding Guidance Now Treats AI-Generated Nudes of Children as Safeguarding Incidents

The Department for Education has published updated Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance, which schools are expected to implement and be fully compliant with by 1 September. The guidance is reissued each year, and this year's version arrived in July.

For the first time, the guidance provides clarity on the definition of nudes to include images generated, either partially or entirely, by artificial intelligence. Schools and designated safeguarding leads will now be expected to treat any AI-generated sexual image of a person aged under 18 as a safeguarding incident. The sending and receiving of explicit messages, including those produced using AI, has been added to the online safety risks schools should be alert to.

The change matters for children and families because it recognises that harm can be caused by images that are entirely fabricated. A child may be depicted in material they never posed for, and the guidance now places the response to such material within a formal safeguarding framework rather than treating it as a lesser concern.

The wider update also puts the expectation that schools be phone-free environments on a statutory footing, requiring that pupils be prevented from accessing their phones during lessons, breaks, lunches and time between classes. Headteachers are described as best placed to decide how the requirement is applied.

The original reporting on these changes was carried by Tes: Tes coverage of the KCSIE changes for 2026.