The UK’s media regulator has launched an investigation into messaging app Telegram over concerns about child sexual abuse material.

Ofcom has also opened investigations into Teen Chat and Chat Avenue to examine if they are meeting their duties to prevent children from the risk of being groomed by predators.

Additionally, Ofcom has provided updates on file-sharing services that are now either using hash-matching technology to detect and swiftly remove child sexual abuse material (CSAM) or have taken steps to prevent people in the UK from accessing their sites.

“Child sexual exploitation and abuse causes devastating harm to victims, and making sure sites and apps tackle this is one of our highest priorities,” Suzanne Cater, director of enforcement at Ofcom, said.

“It’s why we work so closely with partners in law enforcement and child protection organisations to identify where these harms are occurring and hold providers to account where they’re failing to meet their obligations.

“Progress has undeniably been made, particularly with file-sharing services, which are too often used to share horrific child sexual abuse imagery. But this problem extends to big platforms too, and teen-focused chat services are too easily being used by predators to groom children. These firms must do more to protect children, or face serious consequences under the Online Safety Act.”

CSAM on Telegram

Ofcom said it received evidence from the Canadian Centre for Child Protection regarding the alleged presence and sharing of child sexual abuse material on Telegram. The regulator then carried out its own assessment of the platform, and then decided to open an investigation to examine whether Telegram has failed, or is failing, to comply with its duties in relation to illegal content.

In the UK, it is illegal to share or be in possession of CSAM, and, under the Online Safety Act, providers of user-to-user services are required to assess and mitigate the risk of this crime being perpetrated on their platforms.

Grooming 

Ofcom works with child protection agencies to identify services that present particular risks of grooming. This work has raised concerns about the risk to children on two chat services called Teen Chat and Chat Avenue, which have open chatrooms, private messaging, profile creation and media sharing functionalities.

Ofcom has engaged with representatives of the providers of these services to try and address these concerns. However, the regulator says it remains unsatisfied as to whether they are providing adequate protection to UK children from the risk of grooming.

Ofcom is therefore opening an investigation into whether the providers of Teen Chat and Chat Avenue are taking appropriate steps to assess and mitigate the risk of UK users encountering illegal content and activity, including grooming. The investigation into Chat Avenue will also consider whether the provider is taking adequate steps to prevent children from encountering harmful content, including pornography, on the site.

Recommended reading

• UK Gov Cracks Down on Explicit Deepfake Creators
• Ofcom Pushes Tech Firms to Strengthen Online Safety
• Cyberflashing Made Priority Offence Under Online Safety Act

CSAM is being tackled on file-sharing services

When duties under the Online Safety Act came into effect last year, Ofcom immediately launched enforcement action to assess the safety measures being taken by file-sharing providers to prevent offenders from disseminating CSAM on their services.

As part of this work, the regulator said it became concerned that the provider of file-sharing service Pixeldrain had not taken appropriate measures to assess and mitigate this risk.

In response to Ofcom raising concerns with them, the provider of Pixeldrain made material improvements to its Illegal Content Risk Assessment and implemented perceptual hash matching – an automated tool that can detect and swiftly remove CSAM.

Ofcom has also today closed its investigation into file-sharing service Yolobit, which has taken steps to make itself unavailable to people in the UK.

This follows on from five other file-sharing providers taking steps to make their services unavailable to UK users after Ofcom launched enforcement proceedings against them, and two other services deploying hash matching as a direct result of its action.

If Ofcom finds that a company has broken the law, it can require it to take specific steps to come into compliance or to remedy harm caused by the breach. It will be able to impose fines of up to £18 million or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater.