UK Online Safety Act: Ofcom publishes illegal harms guidance for tech platforms

British communications regulator Ofcom has released detailed guidance on how social media platforms and other user-to-user services must tackle illegal content under the Online Safety Act, including child sexual exploitation and abuse material. The codes of practice, which become enforceable in March 2025, require platforms to use proactive technology to identify and remove CSAM, prevent children from encountering harmful material, and implement robust age-assurance measures. Platforms failing to comply face fines of up to ten percent of global annual revenue or criminal liability for senior executives.

Detecting the conversation before the crime occurs is the operational shift these mandates demand. Guardii's anti-CSAM and anti-grooming detection modules monitor the unfolding pattern of coercion, escalation and targeting in real time across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other platforms, surfacing a child at risk to the adult or authority who can act without building a centralised repository of chat content. Where compliance frameworks require platforms to demonstrate effective systems for illegal-content detection, pattern-based interception addresses the underlying harm at the moment of contact rather than after distribution, enabling the rapid escalation Ofcom's guidance anticipates.