UK Tech Firms Face Stricter Online Safety Rules under Ofcom’s New Enforcement

Ofcom enforces the UK’s Online Safety Act, requiring tech firms to tackle illegal content.

In Britain, as enforcement of its online safety regime intensifies on Monday, tech companies must begin implementing safeguards to protect users from images of child sexual abuse and other illicit information.

According to media regulator Ofcom, businesses like Alphabet's YouTube, ByteDance's TikTok, and Meta's Facebook must now put policies in place like easier reporting, improved moderation, and integrated safety checks to combat illegal conduct and make their platforms safer by design.

With a focus on child protection and the elimination of unlawful content, the Online Safety Act, which went into effect in 2023, places stricter requirements on platforms.

Suzanne Cater, enforcement director of Ofcom stated that “Platforms must now act quickly to come into compliance with their legal duties, and our codes are designed to help them do those.”

According to Ofcom, file-sharing and file-storage services are especially susceptible to being exploited to distribute content on child sexual abuse.

Ofcom released its initial guidelines for the new rule in December and gave businesses until March 16 to evaluate the dangers that unlawful content presented to users on their platforms.

Fines of up to 18 million pounds ($23.31 million) or 10% of a company's annual global turnover might be imposed for noncompliance with the rule.

On Monday, it started a different enforcement effort to evaluate the security protocols these services had in place to stop the dissemination of such content.

According to the media regulator, it asked several companies that provide file-storage services to submit their risk assessments by March 31. They might be subject to the same sanctions if they disregard these guidelines.