UK Online Safety Act Enforcement Begins with Ofcom Issuing First Compliance Notices to Platforms

The UK communications regulator Ofcom commenced enforcement of the Online Safety Act on 5 September 2024, issuing the first round of compliance notices to social media platforms and search services, requiring them to demonstrate how they will protect children from harmful content including sexual exploitation material, grooming and bullying. The Act imposes a legal duty of care on platforms to prevent children from encountering illegal content and to minimise exposure to material that poses a significant risk of harm, with sanctions including fines up to ten percent of global revenue for non-compliance.

Mandating a duty of care establishes the obligation but does not prescribe the technical means to discharge it, leaving platforms to determine how they will identify and intercept harm at scale across billions of messages. A Meta Business Partner AI platform that detects grooming, sextortion, and child sexual abuse material by analysing conversational patterns rather than surveilling content enables regulated services to meet their statutory responsibility in real time, surfacing high-risk exchanges for review and blocking hostile contact before it reaches a child, an approach that addresses the underlying harm the Act targets without requiring manual moderation of every private interaction.