Ofcom announces new rules to keep children safe online

Online sites will have to introduce new “transformational” child safety measures or risk being shut down in the UK, Ofcom has announced.

Social media apps and other platforms will have to adapt algorithms and introduce robust age checks to identify those under the age of 18, under new protections that aim to keep children from accessing harmful content.

Technology firms will have until 24 July to comply with the watchdog’s new code of practice.

Melanie Dawes, Ofcom chief executive, said: “These changes are a reset for children online.”

The new rules follows consultation into online safety proposals that received tens of thousands of responses from children and parents as well as input from experts and other stakeholders.

Participants called for better control over their feeds, options to decline invitations to unwanted group chats and stronger content management systems.

Dawes added: “They will mean safer social media feeds with less harmful and dangerous content, protections from being contacted by strangers and effective age checks on adult content. Ofcom has been tasked with bringing about a safer generation of children online, and if companies fail to act they will face enforcement.”

Platforms will have to modify their algorithms so they don’t push harmful content on children’s feeds and introduce age checks that may ban children from accessing part of or the entire site.

Earlier this month Labour MP Gregor Poynton, who chairs the All-Part Parliamentary Group on Children’s Online Safety, urged the regulator to partner with big tech firm such as Google to ensure apps have as much data as possible when verifying a potential user’s age.

Speaking to Holyrood, he said: “Apple and Google should look at whether, when someone downloads an app that is for 18 and over...could they flag that that person might be under 18? Therefore, they could then get sent on a different journey for age verification, which is perhaps longer and more in-depth.”

Under the new Ofcom protections, tech companies will also have to offer “supportive information” to those who have encountered or searched for harmful content, as well as streamline the process for users to report any posts.

By July, all firms must also appoint a person to be responsible for children’s safety and create a senior body to annually review the management of risk to children.

Platforms that fail to comply with the new duties will risk facing fines of up to 10 per cent of their global turnover, and in extreme cases may be closed down in the UK.  

The new code comes as technology secretary Peter Kyle said he was considering a social media curfew for children, citing its impact on sleep and family life.

He told The Telegraph he was “watching very carefully” TikTok’s new feature that encourages under 16s to log off the app by 10pm as well as other tools that parents may use to switch off access at set times.

Kyle described the new Ofcom measures as a “sea change” on children’s experience of social media.