Source · Select Committees · Education Committee
Recommendation 23
23
Accepted
Paragraph: 107
Apply Online Safety Act penalties to social media companies breaching age verification requirements
Recommendation
Decisions made by the Government on the level of the digital age of consent must be effectively enforced. Ofcom must need to be able to go further than simply naming and shaming those who breach age verification measures. The Online Safety Act 2023 allows for substantial fines or even imprisonment for executives of companies who breach its rules, and the Government should consider how this approach can be applied to social media companies who knowingly breach age verification requirements and expose children to addictive content which is not appropriate for them.
Government Response Summary
The government confirms that the Online Safety Act 2023 already provides Ofcom with robust enforcement powers, including substantial fines and criminal offences for non-compliance with child safety duties. These existing powers are deemed sufficient to ensure compliance with age verification requirements for social media companies.
Paragraph Reference:
107
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government expects Ofcom to prioritise the duties that relate to protecting children in their approach to enforcement. In their enforcement guidelines, Ofcom will be required to set out how they will consider any impact on children resulting from a services’ failure to fulfil its duties. Ofcom will have robust enforcement powers available to use against services who fail to fulfil their duties and will be able to issue confirmation decisions with a requirement to take steps to bring them into compliance. Further, enforcement could mean fines of up to £18 million or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue in the relevant year, whichever is higher. There is also provision for escalation of enforcement, whereby Ofcom can also apply to court for business disruption measures in the event of continued non-compliance – these are court orders that require third parties (those providing ancillary services which facilitates the provision of the regulated service) to withdraw their services or to restrict or block access to non-compliant services in the UK. The act also makes it a criminal offence for services failure to comply with Ofcom’s confirmation decision in relation on certain child safety duties, provider pornography duties or child sexual abuse and exploitation requirements. The penalty for these offences could be up to two years in prison, or a fine or both. We are confident Ofcom’s suite of enforcement powers will promote strong compliance with the regime and ensure providers can be held to account.