UK Online Safety Act enforcement begins with new Ofcom codes targeting child sexual abuse material

The UK communications regulator Ofcom published final codes of practice under the Online Safety Act on 26 August 2024, imposing binding duties on platforms to prevent the distribution of child sexual abuse material and other illegal harms. The illegal harms codes require services to implement age-assurance measures, content moderation systems and reporting mechanisms, with non-compliance attracting fines of up to ten percent of global annual revenue or criminal liability for senior executives.

Blanket age-assurance and content-removal mandates address supply but leave the real-time detection gap open: a child engaged by an offender who has cleared initial checks remains unmonitored until after an image is shared or a report is filed. Guardii's anti-grooming and anti-sextortion detection operates at the conversation layer, identifying coercion and escalation patterns as they develop in direct messages across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and Roblox, surfacing a child at risk to a parent or safeguarding professional before material is produced or distributed, and doing so without requiring platforms to decrypt or read every exchange.