Social media platforms will be required to block children from accessing harmful content such as pornography and the promotion of self-harm, or face hefty fines.
Under Ofcom’s new Protection of Children Codes, user-to-user services must implement “highly effective age assurance” measures to identify under-18s from 25 July. Such checks could include facial age estimation or ID.
Ofcom, appointed by the Government to regulate the Online Safety Act, has power to fine companies in breach of their duties up to £18 million or 10 per cent of their qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is the greater. In “extreme cases”, a court could block a website or app in the UK.
‘Too easy’
Ofcom said the Codes complement age-verification rules for pornography services, which came into effect in January.
The regulator stated: “At present, it is far too easy for children to access content that is harmful to them online. We expect the riskiest services to use highly effective age assurance to protect children from harmful content.
“If services have minimum age requirements and are not using highly effective age assurance to prevent children under that age using the service, they should assume that younger children are on their service and take appropriate steps to protect them from harm.”
‘Eradication’
Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, told LBC the measures are important to help protect young people from viewing “harmful”, “illegal and sometimes criminal content when they go online”.
“And to eradicate it once and for all and permanently is something that I am striving for, and this government is striving for on behalf of every parent in this country.”
Kyle revealed that Ofcom has “already started enforcement action against several companies” under the Online Safety Act.
OnlyFans
In March, the provider of OnlyFans was fined just over one million pounds for failing to keep children safe from pornography. Fenix International Limited, which runs the platform for over-18s, would have been fined 30 per cent more if it had not settled the case.
The provider was penalised under the Communications Act 2003 for supplying incorrect information to Ofcom over a 16-month period. Fenix claimed its facial age estimation was ‘challenge 23’, but in fact it was only set to ‘challenge 20’.
Ofcom said the issue, and a delay in reporting it, was “notably hindering our ability to effectively monitor the age assurance measures in place on OnlyFans and undermining the process for making that information public”.
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