Sensitive Content Warnings
Two years ago, Apple announced a new Communication Safety feature that would help protect children from inappropriate photos by blurring them out and providing guidance and resources on where to turn if they were uncomfortable with what they were being sent. While Apple originally planned to include a parental notification component for younger children, it walked back that plan after advocacy groups pointed out that this could create an unsafe environment for children at risk of parental abuse.
Communication Safety for Messages was launched in iOS 15.2 as an opt-in tool available only in Apple Family Sharing groups with users under 18. Now, Apple is expanding this feature to cover more of the ways children can send and receive photos and give adults the option to automatically blur out images they’d rather not see.
A new Sensitive Content Warning setting can be found in Settings > Privacy & Security. When enabled, your iPhone will use on-device machine learning to detect nude photos and videos that land on your iPhone via AirDrop, Contact Posters, Messages, or FaceTime Video Messages and automatically blur them out so you can choose whether you want to see them or not.
Similarly, the Communication Safety feature for kids is being expanded beyond Messages to include AirDrop, Contact Posters, and FaceTime video messages. It will also monitor the system Photo picker to warn kids about sharing sensitive photos in third-party apps.