Response to Ofcom’ s Online Safety Act protection of children’s consultation from: NSPCC, Refuge, End Violence Against Women Coalition, 5 Rights Foundation, Centre for Protecting Women Online, Glitch, Suzy Lamplugh Trust, Safe Lives, UCL Gender and Tech Research Unit, Prof Lorna Woods (University of Essex), Prof Clare McGlynn (University of Durham) and the Online Safety Act Network.
Executive Summary 1. Ofcom’s powers were not designed to provide individuals with redress. Their powers are inadequate to respond to the need for thousands of images, across many websites to be removed. Any orders made would relate to the service overall not individual items of content and would come at the end of a lengthy enforcement process and are designed to be exceptional. 2. Suggestions to add intimate image abuse offences to the priority offences in the Online safety Act therefore will not solve the problem of failing to get specific material removed from the internet.
The OSA Network submission to the call for evidence from the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy to inform its inquiry into “Defending Democracy” can be found as a PDF at the bottom of this page.
Our submission to the Pornography Review Call for Evidence is provided as a PDF below. Our response focuses on the regulatory, legislative and enforcement context for the Government’s review of Pornography. While we we know that there is a line drawn between the scope of the Online Safety Act and the interests of this Review, we would recommend that it is not taken as read that the OSA will deliver the step change envisaged in the online environment – at least not in the short-to-medium term - and we would encourage Baroness Bertin and the review team to consider where gaps remain.
Our full response to Ofcom’s consultation on its draft guidance for service providers publishing pornographic content is available as a PDF at the bottom of this page and summarised below. This is the guidance that will support regulated services’ compliance with part 5 of the Online Safety Act. There are a number of concerns that we raise below that have relevance to those we flagged in our response to Ofcom’s Illegal Harms consultation - in particular, the approach to proportionality and the focus on costs.
Our full response to Ofcom’s first Online Safety Act consultation on illegal harms has been submitted. It is available as a PDF below, along with some of the supporting material we have also submitted. It is to Ofcom’s immense credit that this first consultation (“Protecting people from illegal harms online”) was produced so quickly after the Online Safety Act received Royal Assent. The protracted passage of the Bill through Parliament undoubtedly afforded much time to prepare in some areas – for example, undertaking calls for evidence and commissioning research, recruiting staff and building up expertise.
Ofcom’s proposed plan of work for 2024/5 does not mention any engagement with civil society organisations in its Online Safety deliverables (indeed, there is no mention of “civil society” within the whole document), nor does it seem to take account of the work and related resourcing requirements arising from the consequential, iterative work on its first codes of practice that will be required in the light of the first consultation on illegal harm.
The response available as a PDF below is from the Online Safety Act Network, in conjunction with the Molly Rose Foundation, and reflects inputs from other civil society partners with an interest in this area. The response sets out how we are concerned that the effect of the eligibility criteria will significantly limit the number of expert organisations who might otherwise enter the super-complaints mechanism and that the impact of the procedural requirements on the number of super complaints that Ofcom can consider at any one time will further weaken the regime’s effectiveness.
The proforma submission to this consultation can be downloaded as a PDF below.