- HMD has released the HMD Fuse, a smartphone with AI software that blocks all nude content
- HarmBlock+ blocks or deletes nude content within seconds of detection
- The phone is currently exclusive to Vodafone and Three in the UK
Finnish company HMD, best known as the maker of Nokia phones, has released a new device for teens that uses AI to block the viewing, sending, receiving, and creation of nude images.
The HMD Fuse, which is available now, uses British online safety company SafeToNet’s HarmBlock+ AI to detect and block harmful content, even on live streams or video calls.
HarmBlock+ is embedded at the OS level, can’t be switched off or worked around, and works across any app or content type by scanning for nude imagery at the screen rendering stage. When such imagery is detected, the entire screen is blocked, and any communications apps are closed, severing calls or live streams.
“We believe this will be the most impactful smartphone launch of the year,” James Robinson, VP of HMD Family at HMD, said at the Fuse’s London launch. “When you give your child a smartphone, you bring a stranger and unknown dangers into your home. You can’t watch them always online, but now you have peace of mind that there’s protection in place even when you can’t be there.”
HMD consulted with more than 37,000 parents, guardians, and children in the design process of the HMD Fuse, seeking a balance between function, safety, and indeed privacy for the child using the phone.
Harmblock+ works by taking a snapshot of the screen rendering pipeline every six to seven seconds, and was trained on a database of 22 million ethically sourced harmful images. The snapshots are only ever stored and processed on-device, and are destroyed as soon as the Harmblock+ block is activated.
Richard Pursey, founder of SafeToNet, said: “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.”
“We are seeing a rise in peer-to-peer online abuse and child exploitation,” Pursey added, “and this is the first and only AI to stop that. In essence, we have made the HMD Fuse pornography incompatible.”
A tech solution for a societal problem
The safety of children online has been a major concern lately, especially with the Online Safety Act coming into effect in the UK. Data provided by Vodafone suggests that 1 in 5 secondary school-aged children have felt pressured to send explicit images of themselves. Of those that do, nearly two-thirds later find out that these images were forwarded on to others without their consent.
The HMD Fuse aims to prevent the pain and panic that can come from such a situation. And, of course, the creation and receipt of such images is highly illegal, no matter the age of the participants, so HarmBlock+ could also stop children from breaking the law.
In essence, we have made the HMD Fuse pornography incompatible.
Richard Pursey, founder of SafeToNet
At the phone’s launch event, Pursey said: “The world needs to understand the art of the possible. Those platforms that say online harm is a social issue that can’t be solved by technology… we’re proving to you that they’re wrong.”
The same event included a demo with the new phone – and having tested HarmBlock+ ourselves, we can confirm it’s remarkably effective, acting within seconds and forcing a return to the previous screen.
The phone was first revealed to a group of schoolchildren at the Michael Community School in Wembley, London, where headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh said: “This device gives parents the power to intervene, to guide, and to protect, and for that, it could change lives.”
More than just AI
While HarmBlock+ is focused on blocking pornography and child sexual abuse material, the HMD Fuse’s digital and real-world safety tools don’t end there. In fact, the phone is built from the ground up with parental controls in mind.
At first, the HMD Fuse has practically no smart functions whatsoever, and is only as functional as a Nokia feature phone. Using a linked app on their own smart device, parents and guardians can enable or disable apps and features in real time, as well as limit screen time and track the location of their child’s HMD Fuse.
As for hardware, the HMD Fuse competes with the best cheap phones. The phone comes with a 6.56-inch display, a Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 chipset with 6GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage (expandable with up to 1TB of microSD storage). The handset also sports a 108MP rear camera, a 50MP selfie camera, and a 5,000mAh battery.
The phone’s single configuration is available exclusively from Vodafone and Three at £33/month (£30 upfront) with 5GB of mobile data. A wider release seems unlikely at this stage, but software like HarmBlock+ is certainly something we’d like to see adopted on a global scale.
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jamie.richards@futurenet.com (Jamie Richards)
