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Apple billboard featuring toddler with iPhone causes controversy in Italy

Marcus Mendes | Aug 12 2026 - 1:16 pm PT

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An Apple billboard showing a toddler holding an iPhone has drawn criticism in Italy, prompting the country’s children’s rights watchdog to refer the ad to three regulators for review. Here are the details.

Apple’s ‘Relax, it’s iPhone’ campaign draws criticism in Italy

Italy’s Autorità Garante per l’Infanzia e l’Adolescenza (AGIA) has taken issue with an Apple billboard in Milan that shows a toddler holding an iPhone, accompanied by the tagline “Tutto ok, è iPhone.”

Image credit: Autorità Garante per l’Infanzia e l’Adolescenza

The ad is part of Apple’s long-running “Relax, it’s iPhone” campaign, which typically shows iPhones surviving potentially damaging situations.

The latest billboards for the campaign show iPhones being used in heavy rain, nudged off a table by a cat, and carried in a dog’s mouth.

One of the campaign’s new billboards shows a toddler holding an iPhone, which is likely meant to suggest that parents can be at ease if a toddler drops their device. Still, it has sparked controversy over what AGIA called the “normalization of electronic babysitting.”

In a press release, AGIA says the matter was brought to its attention by a Milanese citizen who said the image was “disturbing,” as it “[brought] together two worlds that should remain separate.”

In her complaint, she also asks:

“How can we accept […] an advertisement that associates a device like this with such a young child? Why don’t those responsible for overseeing advertising intervene? Why do those working in marketing seem unwilling to set ethical limits or question their responsibility for the images they put out?”

AGIA, for its part, also called out the ad’s timing:

“While countries around the world have long been discussing minimum ages for access to digital technology, this advertisement seems to be moving in exactly the opposite direction, normalizing something that unfortunately we see with worrying frequency: very young children being entrusted to ‘electronic babysitting,’ which can mark the beginning of a possible addiction with serious consequences for their psychological and cognitive development.

AGIA says it has referred the case to AGCOM, Italy’s communications regulator; AGCM, the Italian Competition Authority; and IAP, the country’s advertising self-regulatory institute, “for appropriate reviews and any potential action.”

Apple has yet to publicly comment on the issue.

What’s your take on this controversy? Let us know in the comments.

[H/T Tipster]

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Marcus Mendes

https://www.threads.com/mvcmendes

Marcus Mendes is a Brazilian tech podcaster and journalist who has been closely following Apple since the mid-2000s.

He began covering Apple news in Brazilian media in 2012 and later broadened his focus to the wider tech industry, hosting a daily podcast for seven years.