05/08/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 05/07/2024 17:06
As the UK's online safety regulator, we have published a package of proposed measures that social media and other online services must take to improve children's safety when they're online.
In this article, we explain some of the main measures and the difference we expect them to make. Whether you are a parent, carer or someone working with children, this can help you understand what is happening to help children in the UK live safer lives online.
Protecting children so they can enjoy the benefits of being online, without experiencing the potentially serious harms that exist in the online world, is a priority for Ofcom.
We're taking action - setting out proposed steps online services would need to take to keep kids safer online, as part of their duties under the Online Safety Act.
Under the Act social media apps, search and other online services must prevent children from encountering the most harmful content relating to suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, and pornography. They must also minimise children's exposure to other serious harms, including violent, hateful or abusive material, bullying content, and content promoting dangerous challenges.
Firstly, online services must establish whether children are likely to access their site - or part of it. And secondly, if children are likely to access it, the company must carry out a further assessment to identify the risks their service poses to children, including the risk that come from the design of their services, their functionalities and algorithms. They then need to introduce various safety measures to mitigate these risks.
Our consultation proposes more than 40 safety measures that services would need to take - all aimed at making sure children enjoy safer screen time when they are online. These include:
We believe these measures will improve children's online experiences in a number of ways. For example:
Our consultation follows proposals we've already published for how children should be protected from illegal content and activity such as grooming, child sexual exploitation and abuse, as well as how children should be prevented from accessing pornographic content.
Our consultation is open until 17 July and we welcome any feedback on the proposals. We expect to finalise our proposals and publish our final statement and documents in spring next year, subject to approval by Parliament.