Technology Secretary Peter Kyle has set out his priorities for the Ofcom, as it prepares to implement and enforce the Online Safety Act next year. The Online Safety Act requires the government to publish a Statement of Strategic Priorities (SSP). The SSP will be laid in Parliament for approval, before being formally designated by the Secretary of State. This is expected to take place in the spring of 2025.
The SSP includes the following:
- Safety by design: Embed safety by design to deliver safe online experiences for all users but especially children, tackle violence against women and girls, and work towards ensuring that there are no safe havens for illegal content and activity, including fraud, child sexual exploitation and abuse, and illegal disinformation.
- Transparency and accountability: Ensure industry transparency and accountability from platforms to deliver online safety outcomes, promoting increased trust and expanding the evidence-base to provide safer experiences for users.
- Agile regulation: Deliver an agile approach to regulation, ensuring the framework is robust in monitoring and tackling emerging harms – such as AI generated content.
- Inclusivity and resilience: Create an inclusive, informed and vibrant digital world which is resilient to potential harms, including disinformation.
- Technology and innovation: Foster the innovation of online safety technologies to improve the safety of users and drive growth.
Ofcom will have to consider each of the government’s strategic priorities as it enforces the Online Safety Act from next year and will be required to report back to the Secretary of State on what action it has taken against the priorities to ensure the laws are delivering safer spaces online.
The government says that it is committed to implementing the Act as quickly and effectively as possible and has already acted to deliver safer experiences for people online. Earlier this year, platforms’ responsibilities to remove intimate image abuse content were strengthened, whilst new data laws aim to help researchers gather critical evidence about online harms
In addition, a new research project has been launched to boost the evidence base around online harms, The first stage of the project will examine what methods will best help the government understand the impact of smartphones and social media use on children. This follows a review by the UK Chief Medical Officer in 2019 which found that the evidence base around the links to children’s mental health were insufficient to provide strong conclusions. The project aims to improve policy makers understanding of the relationship between children’s wellbeing and smartphone use and help direct future government action.
