UK Online Safety Act: Ofcom publishes final illegal harms codes
Guardii Analysis
The UK communications regulator Ofcom published its final illegal harms codes of practice on 26 September 2024, setting binding requirements for user-to-user services and search engines under the Online Safety Act. The codes require platforms to assess risks of child sexual exploitation and abuse content, implement proactive technology to detect CSAM, and take swift action to remove illegal material, with services having three months to complete risk assessments once the codes take effect.
Detection at the point of contact addresses the duty without requiring platforms to choose between monitoring every exchange and allowing harm to proliferate. Guardii's anti-CSAM module, designed for real-time pattern recognition across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and other messaging environments, identifies material and exchange characteristics consistent with child sexual abuse—including AI-generated and synthetic imagery—before distribution, enabling platforms to meet their proactive-technology obligations while reporting threat patterns rather than warehousing content. As a Meta Business Partner and Startmate-backed technology, Guardii's architecture is built to operate at the scale and speed the UK regime now mandates.