Ofcom seeks clarity, resources on social media age regulation in letter to DSIT

UK regulator Ofcom is not one hundred percent confident that it can enforce the government’s plan to impose an age restriction on large social media platforms.

The Times reports that Ofcom has written to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), calling for the government to be “as clear and specific as possible, including about the services these restrictions will and will not apply to” – and making the case for more support.

The regulation as proposed captures “user-to-user platforms, whose purpose is to enable social interaction and which allow users to post material, alongside algorithms.” Prime Minister Keir Starmer has boasted that its “world-leading blocks on harmful functions,” such as livestreaming and stranger communication with children, “go further than any other country.”

In his letter to DSIT, Oliver Griffiths, Ofcom’s online safety group director, says carrying out age checks for under-16s is “technically feasible” but faces “a range of practical implementation challenges.” He believes there is “more work to do to understand the effectiveness and accessibility of different methods, the availability of identity and age attributes at 16, and the privacy considerations of different existing and emerging methods.”

In particular, he calls out systems that infer the age of teenagers from their social media activity, and says evidence from Australia “does not yet show that these models can deliver an effective, privacy-preserving solution for an under-16 ban.”

Griffiths notes a forthcoming report that will “assess the use, effectiveness and challenges of the current service-level statutory approach to age assurance.”

Effective design, implementation and enforcement, he says, are still being worked out, and “in the longer term, a layered or whole-of-system approach may be most effective, reducing circumvention and increasing public trust.” This statement would seem to see Ofcom pivoting away from platform-level age checks provided by digital identity firms – which could force pivots from providers, and ruffle more feathers over the fate of the Digital Verification Services (DVS) trust framework and the thriving private sector it was meant to spur.

‘Extra resources’ would help Ofcom be extra effective

Of course, nothing is impossible, provided there is money on the table, even in the case of intergovernmental lobbying. Griffiths says the department is occupied with current work, including a report about the use of app stores and implementing remaining elements of the OSA. “Delivering this combined programme of work, he says, “will require both extra resources and clear prioritisation.”

Ofcom will thus deliver a business case to DSIT in the coming weeks. Over it will loom the grey specter of bureaucratic haggling over funding and priorities. In the government’s announcement on the social media rule, Technology Secretary Liz Kendall included comments aimed at Ofcom, demanding it submit an enforcement plan and proclaiming that “if further steps are needed to improve the speed and decisiveness with which Ofcom can act, I will not hesitate to take them.”

A more conciliatory letter, addressed to Kendall and signed by Ofcom chief executive Dame Melanie Dawes, says the regulator is “open to deepening and strengthening our accountability to Parliament and would value parliamentary proposals in this area.”

“Improving the safety of UK users online is a defining challenge for our era and at Ofcom we are ready to continue working closely with government, Parliament, stakeholders and partners to drive lasting change.”

The statement conveniently serves as both an entreaty and a throwdown: hold us accountable, she says – but give us the tools to be successful.

Build in accountability from ground up: AVPA

The Times quotes Iain Corby, executive director of the Age Verification Providers Association (AVPA), who notes that the overarching problem with age assurance as it has unfolded in Australia has nothing to do with technology, and everything to do with platforms acting in good faith.

“The technology already exists and is being used successfully every day at enormous scale.

The real question is whether platforms are prepared to deploy it consistently and effectively.” [Australia] is now doing exactly the right thing in moving to enforcement, and we expect that to drive the improvement that early compliance monitoring alone could not.”

“The UK has an opportunity to build that accountability in from the start, so that the policy delivers in practice what it promises on paper.”

Article Topics

age verification  |  AVPA  |  Department for Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT)  |  Ofcom  |  regulation  |  social media  |  UK age verification