Image copyright Thinkstock | BBC

Emoji flags for Wales, Scotland and England are being considered by the international authority on computer text and characters.

A UK flag is available on keyboards found on devices such as smartphones.

But a proposal submitted to Unicode has recommended adding flags for the home nations to the keyboard.

Unicode's committee is meeting in Washington, US, to consider which characters to add to the world's digital keyboards.

The lack of emoji flags meant the UK's social media users were unable to include their home nation's flags via their keyboards when writing about events such as the Euro 2016 football tournament or last year's Rugby World Cup.

Alternatives have been used by social media users, including hashtags and the dragon's head emoji favoured by footballer Gareth Bale during the European Championships.

Image copyright Gareth Bale | Twitter Image caption Gareth Bale's tweets included the use of a dragon emoji during Euro 2016

The proposal for a new range of emoji flags was submitted by Jeremy Burge, of Emojipedia, and BBC Wales's social media lead, Owen Williams.

The flag for Northern Ireland has not been included in the proposal as it does not have official status, although it is included in an unrelated proposal asking Unicode to adopt "regional indicator" emojis.

If approved, the new emoji flags could be available during next summer.