Ofcom is keeping busy. Hot on the heels of its consultation on keeping women and girls safe online and issuing its final guidance on information requests, it has now made its first information requests under the Online Safety Act 2023 concerning illegal harms assessments.
New illegal harms duties and risk assessments
The illegal harms duties under the Act came into force on 16 December 2024 when Ofcom published its illegal harms codes of practice and guidance.
Before they can combat illegal harms on their platforms, providers must carry out risk assessments to improve their understanding of how risks of different kinds of illegal harm could arise on their services, and what safety measures they need to put in place to protect users.
Providers have until 16 March 2025 to complete their illegal harms risk assessment. They must also document their risk assessment, including information about how it was carried out and its findings.
New enforcement programme
Ofcom is opening an enforcement programme to monitor if providers are complying with their illegal content risk assessment duties and record-keeping duties under the Act. The main objectives of this programme are to monitor compliance with the relevant duties in the Act, to monitor how the industry is applying Ofcom's risk assessment guidance and record-keeping guidance, and support the adoption of best practice.
Focus on high risk platforms
Ofcom says that one of its key priorities is to scrutinise the compliance of sites and apps that may present particular risks of harm from illegal content due to their size or nature, for example, because they have many users in the UK, or because their users may risk encountering some of the most harmful forms of online content and conduct, including child sexual exploitation and abuse, terrorism, hate crimes, content encouraging or assisting suicide, and fraud.
Information request
Therefore, Ofcom has issued formal information requests to several services, including the largest social media platforms, as well as smaller but risky sites. They must respond by 31 March.
Ofcom will use the responses to identify gaps in risk assessments (it seems to assume that there will be gaps) and encourage improvements. It will also use the responses to develop new measures for its codes of practice.
Providers must respond to any statutory request for information by Ofcom in an accurate, complete and timely way. If any platform does not provide Ofcom with a satisfactory response by the deadline, it will open investigations into individual service providers. It has highlighted its enforcement powers and its readiness to use them.
Age assurance enforcement programme
In January, Ofcom also opened an enforcement programme into age assurance measures that providers of pornographic content are implementing, and says that it will be launching further action in other areas in the coming weeks and months.
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