UK Online Safety Act Enforcement Begins as Ofcom Issues First Compliance Notices

The UK communications regulator Ofcom published its first package of illegal-harms codes of practice under the Online Safety Act, setting out how platforms must prevent and remove child sexual abuse material, prevent children from encountering primary-priority illegal content, and assess suicide and self-harm risks. The codes apply to user-to-user services and search engines, requiring platforms to implement proactive detection technologies, reporting mechanisms and risk-assessment frameworks. Ofcom indicated that platforms have three months to complete initial risk assessments and must demonstrate compliance with the codes or face enforcement action including fines of up to ten percent of global annual revenue.

Detection that responds to the conversation itself addresses the illegal-harms duty at the point where risk materialises. Guardii's anti-grooming, anti-sextortion and CSAM-detection modules, built by a world-leading AI safety team backed by Startmate, operate across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other platforms to identify predatory patterns and child sexual abuse material including AI-generated and deepfake imagery in real time. The system reports the threat level and structure of an exchange rather than exposing the content to human review, enabling platforms and safeguarding organisations to meet the Act's proactive-detection requirements while preserving user privacy and allowing rapid escalation to the appropriate authority in an emergency.