UK Online Safety Act: Ofcom publishes draft codes of practice on illegal content and child safety

Ofcom has released draft codes of practice under the Online Safety Act requiring platforms to implement illegal content and child safety measures, including proactive detection systems, robust age verification and assurance technologies, and content moderation across private and public channels. The draft codes apply to Category 1 and 2A services and mandate risk assessments, technical safeguards to prevent children encountering harmful content, and reporting mechanisms for child sexual exploitation and abuse material.

Blanket access restrictions and age-gating create compliance burdens for legitimate users while pushing harm into unregulated spaces where no detection operates. Real-time pattern recognition that identifies escalation, coercion and predatory contact across messaging platforms addresses the regulatory intent without requiring universal identity verification or content monitoring of every user. Guardii's anti-grooming and anti-sextortion detection modules flag hostile approaches and exploitation attempts at the point of contact, surfacing children at acute risk to parents or safeguarding teams and enabling platforms to meet duty-of-care obligations under the Act through targeted intervention rather than blanket exclusion.