Ofcom poised to enforce kids codes

A recent meeting of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee saw Dame Melanie Dawes, head of UK regulator Ofcom, field questions about the Online Safety Act, the children’s codes, age assurance and the timeline on enforcement of new regulations.

The UK children’s codes went into effect on March 16, and Dawes says “we expect all those companies to be implementing the provisions of the codes if they need to do so.”

Dawes confirms that, regarding illegal harms and protection of children, “we are now into enforcement in those areas.”

On timing, Dawes says “it can get quite difficult for us to predict timelines,” but notes that Ofcom’s first action is underway: an investigation of a suicide discussion forum, which Dawes says “is advocating, assisting and giving people the means to take their own lives,” which “falls squarely against the illegal harms parts of the Online Safety Act.”

“Ultimately, as you know, we can levy pretty stringent fines,” she says. “We can also seek, through the courts, a business disruption order against a platform that we feel is simply not listening to what we are saying and to what the Act says, particularly where the level of harm warrants that.” She notes that freedom of expression must factor into the decision, but also that the forum in question “has been the subject of a number of coroners’ requests of Ofcom and a number of prevention of future death reports.”

As for further enforcement action, Dawes says Ofcom is sifting through the risk assessments it required firms to submit.

“We have been interrogating those assessments over the last few weeks and having some conversations with companies where we think there are issues,” Dawes says. “We have been doing the same when it comes to the need for age assurance for pornography sites, for example. There we are poised to take enforcement action fairly soon against a couple of companies that we are concerned about.”

Overall, Dawes says, “we are on the way in doing what the Act requires of us, which is to assess the risk assessments and assess the measures and then start to take action if we think we need to.”

Punishment, of course, takes resources. Dawes notes the potential risks facing the regulator as it assumes the role of enforcer. “If we end up with some really big court cases, that could be quite expensive. We have a good arrangement with the government, certainly around legal costs.”

“Everyone wants us to get on with this Act. I have got absolutely no questions at all about the Government’s commitment for us to do that – in fact, if anything, they keep asking us to do even more and even faster. If we end up with resource issues, then that is a good conversation that I would hope to be able to have.”

Article Topics

ADVP  |  age verification  |  AVPA  |  digital wallets  |  Gov.UK  |  Ofcom  |  Online Safety Act  |  regulation  |  UK age verification