Ofcom has today launched a digital toolkit to help businesses comply with new online safety rules.

The tool is a step-by-step guide online services can follow to help them complete an assessment for the risks of illegal content on their platforms. It will also help them to comply with additional safety, record-keeping and review duties.

It is the first of the regulator’s digital support services that will help online services to make sure they carry out their responsibilities under the Online Safety Act.

Who is it for & How Does it Work?

The tool is for providers of services that allow users to generate, share and upload content (which the regulation refers to as user-to-user services) and search services. It has been designed with small and medium-sized businesses in mind but Ofcom states that it could be useful to any organisation that falls under the Online Safety Act.

The tool is divided in to four steps based on Ofcom’s risk assessment guidance:

• Step 1 will help services to understand which kinds of illegal content to assess and to make accurate judgments about the risks.
• Step 2 sets out how to assess the risk of harm from each kind of priority illegal content on a service, and other illegal content.
• Step 3 helps to identify any relevant measures that can be implemented to address risk, record any measures the service has taken, and make a record of their assessment.
• Step 4 will help services to understand how to keep their risk assessment up to date and put in place steps to review it.

When services use the tool for the first time, they are given a unique reference code to save their progress and return to the tool at any time.

What Are The Benefits of Using the Tool?

Based on the answers a service provides when using the toolkit, they will be provided with tailored recommendations for how to comply with the new online safety rules. The tool gives an overview of how risks of different kinds of illegal harm could arise on a service and what safety measures it needs to put in place to protect its users.

Progressing through the tool will help services to complete an illegal harms risk assessment and make the required records. This is an important part of compliance with the Online Safety Act.

The online safety regime is now in force and 2025 is the year of action for services. As such, Ofcom states that sites and apps must now act to better protect users online, especially children.

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The release of Digital Safety Toolkit comes hot on the heels of Ofcom announcing that websites which provide a platform to any pornographic material, including social media platforms, will now be tasked will issuing “robust” age verification measures as Ofcom issues guidance laid out in the Online Safety Act.

The new regulation, which will put the onus on platforms to check for age verification potentially in the form of photo ID matches or credit card checks, aims to prevent children from viewing pornographic material online.