The European Commission published guidance on 9 August 2024 setting out how very large online platforms and search engines designated under the Digital Services Act must conduct risk assessments and implement mitigation measures to protect minors from harmful content, contact and conduct, including child sexual abuse material, grooming and cyberbullying. The guidance specifies that platforms must consider algorithmic amplification, design features that facilitate contact with strangers, and age-verification or age-assurance technologies, with the first wave of risk-assessment reports due in the autumn of 2024.
Risk assessment and design-layer controls form part of systemic compliance, but they do not analyse the content of individual conversations where grooming and sextortion unfold. Point-of-contact detection intercepts coercion and exploitation in real time, at the moment a predator initiates contact or a peer escalates bullying to abuse. Guardii monitors direct messages across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other platforms, deploying anti-grooming, anti-sextortion, anti-CSAM and anti-cyberbullying modules that flag hostile or illegal exchanges to parents, schools and safeguarding professionals, enabling immediate intervention where a child is at acute risk. The technology fulfils the Act's mitigation requirements by addressing the harm itself, not only the environment in which it occurs.
