Starting today, online platforms must implement measures to safeguard UK users from criminal activity as another milestone of the Online Safety Act comes into force.

The UK’s media regulator, Ofcom, will today begin its enforcement of the Act’s illegal content duties, meaning platforms have to start implementing measures to remove illegal material quickly when they become aware of it, and to reduce the risk of ‘priority’ criminal content from appearing in the first place.

Ofcom said that over the coming weeks and months, it will assess platforms’ compliance with the new illegal harms obligations, with plans to launch targeted enforcement action where concerns of inaction are found. 

Providers of services had until yesterday (16th March) to carry out illegal harm risk assessments to understand how likely it is that their users might encounter illegal content on their services, or in the case of ‘user-to-user’ services, how they could be used to commit or facilitate criminal offences.

The Online Safety Act lists over 130 ‘priority offences’, with tech firms required to assess and mitigate the risk of these occurring on their platforms. The priority offences include hate offences, intimate image abuse, fraud and financial offences, as well as child sexual exploitation.

In October, the regulator warned tech firms they could face enforcement action if they don’t comply with the new duties, which has already seen social media giants Meta and Snapchat make changes to protect children from online grooming.

A major focus of the Online Safety Act centres on strengthening these protections around children, with Ofcom today announcing the launch of an enforcement programme around the proliferation of online child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on file-sharing services.

According to the regulator, evidence shows that file-sharing and file-storage services are particularly susceptible to being used for the sharing of image-based CSAM.

Among the forty safety measures set out in Ofcom’s illegal harms codes of practice, it recommends that certain services – including all file-sharing services at high risk of hosting CSAM – use automated moderation technology, including ‘perceptual hash-matching’, to assess whether content is CSAM and, if so, to swiftly take it down.

Now, with its assessment of the safety measures being taken by file-sharing and file-storage providers, Ofcom said it will be sending these services formal information requests regarding the measures they have in place, or will soon have in place, to tackle CSAM.

If any platform does not engage with compliance measures, Ofcom said it could open investigations into individual services, which could end in fines of up to 10% of turnover or £18m – whichever is greater – or even an application to block a site in the UK.

“Child sexual abuse is utterly sickening and file storage and sharing services are too often used to share this horrific material. Ofcom’s first priority is to make sure that sites and apps take the necessary steps to stop it being hosted or shared,” said Suzanne Cater, enforcement director at Ofcom.

“Platforms must now act quickly to come into compliance with their legal duties, and our codes are designed to help them do that. 

“But, make no mistake, any provider who fails to introduce the necessary protections can expect to face the full force of our enforcement action.”

Recommended reading

• Creating Deepfakes To be Criminalised in UK
• Ofcom Introduces Over 40 New Online Safety Measures
• Children First See Violent Online Content at Primary School Age

Despite the regulator’s strong words, some campaigners believe more must be done to tackle the harms caused by illegal content online.

Earlier this month, the Molly Rose Foundation found that although four in five adults support the rules in the Online Safety Act that strengthen regulation for children, only 9% of UK adults think the UK Government is doing everything it can to protect children’s online safety, and just 11% think Ofcom is doing all it can.

According to the charity, the Act must be urgently reworked to tackle ‘fluid ideologies’, where no clear ideology is identified in those committing or coercing others into violent or sadistic acts, with these risk archetypes now driving disturbing new online threats.