United Kingdom - November 2023

The UK’s telecommunications regulator, Ofcom, began rolling out codes of conduct and guidelines to enforce the Online Public Safety Act. The new law, which received Royal Assent on 26 October following campaigning by children’s rights groups, requires companies to remove illegal content from their platforms (or risk a hefty fine of 10 per cent of the company’s annual revenue from Ofcom). On 9 November, Ofcom opened consultations with industry on its first batch of proposals for how services can identify illegal content, and mitigate the risks of harms, including annual reviews by company management of risk monitoring and management of potential harms to children on their services, leveraging automated detection of child sex abuse material, and prioritising content management according to the virality and potential severity of the content. The final decisions will be published in autumn 2024, and submitted to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology before being put to a vote in Parliament.

Sources: UK Parliament, WIRED, Ofcom, Legislation.gov, NSPCC, UK Government