Online Safety Act one year on: Ofcom must fix holes in regulation
A year ago today, following seven years of extensive and detailed public and political debate, the Online Safety Act passed into UK law. The Act represented a landmark for children’s safety online, with its principal objectives requiring tech companies to make their services safe by design and to provide a higher level of protection to children.
Since then, the mantle has been with the UK’s online safety regulator, Ofcom, to prepare the ‘rules’ that tech companies must follow to be compliant with the law. Despite the extensive engagement, evidence, research and lived experience which has fed into this implementation phase by 5Rights and countless others, Ofcom’s proposals as currently drafted are light-touch and incomplete, and fail to meet the needs of children and the expectations of parliamentarians, civil society, parents and teachers.
“For decades, the tech industry has been allowed to get away with willfully ignoring children on their platforms, exposing them to toxic algorithms and addictive design features which keep them using at any cost. The Online Safety Act was intended to bring an end to this era, creating a better digital world children can enjoy confidently and safely. One year on, we are not convinced that Ofcom’s plans are anywhere close to delivering on this ambition. Holes in their implementation must be fixed.”
Colette Collins-Walsh, Head of UK Affairs
5Rights continues to advocate for ambitious implementation of the Act
This past year 5Rights has worked in partnership with our civil society partners and advocates to call for ambitious implementation of the Act to bring about meaningful changes to children’s lives online.
As part of Ofcom’s consultation phase, 5Rights has fed into the regulator’s illegal harms duties and children’s safety duties proposals. Our responses highlight crucial gaps in the draft codes that mean tech companies do not have to address all harms to children, make their platforms age-appropriate for children in different age groups, or set and enforce minimum age requirements.
The 5Rights-led Children’s Coalition for Online Safety, a group of 20+ expert organisations set the bar for what the Children’s Safety Code of Practice could look like to effectively deliver for children in its Enforcing the Online Safety Act report.
Following the publication of Ofcom’s proposals, the group published a joint statement, which appeared in The Times newspaper in July, emphasising the group’s concern that the Code does not do enough to safeguard children. This was met with a commitment from the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Peter Kyle MP, to build on the regulation.
5Rights will continue to constructively engage with Ofcom. However, we will also continue to point out where more can be done – both by the regulator and tech sector – to make sure the Act is meeting the needs of children.