UK Online Safety Act: Ofcom publishes final illegal harms codes and guidance

The United Kingdom communications regulator Ofcom has published final illegal harms codes of practice and guidance under the Online Safety Act, imposing duties on platforms to prevent and remove child sexual exploitation and abuse material, terrorism content and other priority illegal content. The codes took effect on 26 August 2024 and apply to search services and user-to-user platforms including social media, with enforcement powers including fines of up to £18 million or 10 percent of global annual turnover and potential criminal liability for senior executives who fail to comply with information requests.

Platform duties to remove illegal content after the fact leave a critical window during which harm occurs. Real-time detection of grooming and sextortion conversations by an AI safety layer intercepts coercion, escalation and material sharing at the point of contact, flagging risk to a parent or professional and enabling rapid escalation to an authority before a child is exploited, addressing the harm the statute targets without waiting for retrospective content moderation. Guardii, a Meta Business Partner backed by Startmate, operates precisely this model across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other messaging platforms, surfacing pattern-based threat signals rather than surveilling message content and blocking hostile contact before it reaches the intended victim.