Pre-screen material before upload
IICSA · The Internet Investigation Report · Issued 31 March 2020 · Addressed to: UK Government
Source — verbatim from the inquiry
●Inquiry recommendation, F
The government should require industry to pre-screen material before it is uploaded to the internet to prevent access to known indecent images of children.
IICSA, The Internet Investigation Report · 31 Mar 2020 Source PDF →
Published evidence summary
Publicly available evidence relating to this recommendation:
- The Online Safety Act 2023 received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023 and requires regulated services to take measures to prevent, detect and remove child sexual abuse material (Online Safety Act 2023, Part 4).
- In May 2023, the government confirmed that this recommendation was being addressed through the Online Safety Act (Government Response to IICSA Final Report, HM Government, May 2023).
Response — verbatim from government
●UK Government
On 10 November 2020, the UK government stated that it had launched the Voluntary Principles to Counter Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse alongside the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The interim code of practice on tackling child sexual abuse and exploitation and the Voluntary Principles set out the UK government's expectation that all companies will prevent access to known child sexual abuse material, which includes pre-screening. On 12 May 2021, the UK government published a draft Online Safety Bill. The Bill includes a clause that imposes duties on regulated search services with regards to illegal content, including child sexual abuse and exploitation material. The clause requires service providers to have proportionate systems and processes to minimise the risk of users encountering illegal content on their services, because they have been alerted to it or they become aware of it in some other way. A second Inquiry recommendation on pre-screening images online was made (see row 72).
UK Government · 22 May 2023 Written response →
Evidence trail — what's actually happened since
No published activity has been recorded against this recommendation yet.
Each entry above links to a primary source — gov.uk written statement, consultation response document, or inspection report. The Index does not characterise government intent; it tracks what has been published.
How this page is built
Source and Response are verbatim from primary documents. The Evidence trail records published activity since — written statements, consultation outcomes, inspection findings, parliamentary references. The Index does not paraphrase or characterise intent; it tracks what has been published. Where the evidence is the absence of action (a missed deadline, a slipped timetable), that absence is documented from primary sources rather than inferred.
This recommendation's data is verified periodically against primary sources. The Index is monitored for staleness weekly.