Wales, Scotland and England flags on next emoji update

Emoji flags for Wales, Scotland and England have been approved, it has been announced.

Unicode, the authority on computer text and characters, has agreed to add the three flags to the next release of emojis.

Leading technology companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook will now be able to introduce the flags to their software.

A UK flag is already available on smartphones and other devices.

The campaign for a new range of emoji flags was started by Jeremy Burge of Emojipedia and BBC Wales' social media lead Owen Williams, external in March 2016.

The new flags are anticipated to be rolled out by the summer.

Emoji flags already available include those for Ascension Island, St Barthelemy, Curaçao, Diego Garcia and Djibouti.

A flag for the Isle of Man is available but the Northern Ireland flag was not included in the proposals as it has no official status.