UK Online Safety Act Child Safety Duties Come Into Force

The United Kingdom's child-safety duties under the Online Safety Act 2023 formally came into force on 26 August 2024, requiring platforms likely to be accessed by children to assess risks of serious harm including grooming, sexual exploitation and suicide content, and to implement proportionate systems and processes to mitigate those risks. Ofcom, the designated regulator, will publish codes of practice and guidance to support compliance, with powers to issue enforcement notices and fines of up to 10 percent of global annual turnover for systemic failures.

Regulatory duty to assess and mitigate risk creates demand for systems that deliver operational evidence of protection. As a Meta Business Partner and world-leading AI safety platform, Guardii provides the detection infrastructure the Act's duties contemplate: real-time identification of grooming, sextortion, child sexual abuse material and self-harm signals across direct messages on Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other services, surfacing pattern-based alerts to parents, schools and platforms without exposing message content, and generating the audit trail regulators will expect when evaluating whether a service has discharged its duty of care.