Pre-screening by Internet Providers
IICSA · The Report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse · Issued 20 October 2022 · Addressed to: UK Government
Source — verbatim from the inquiry
●Inquiry recommendation, K.5
The Inquiry recommends that the UK government makes it mandatory for all regulated providers of search services and user-to-user services to pre-screen for known child sexual abuse material.
IICSA, The Report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse · 20 Oct 2022 Source PDF →
Published evidence summary
Publicly available evidence relating to this recommendation:
- The Online Safety Act 2023 received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023. It requires providers of regulated search services and user-to-user services to take proactive measures to identify, remove and report child sexual abuse material (Online Safety Act 2023, Part 4, Chapter 2).
Response — verbatim from government
●UK Government
We accept the need to hold companies to account for removing, reporting and limiting the spread of child sexual abuse material on their services. The UK’s world- leading Online Safety Bill will address this by including the strongest duties for companies to identify and remove child sexual abuse content from their services. We expect the bill to receive Royal Assent this Parliamentary session.
UK Government · 22 May 2023 Written response →
Evidence trail — what's actually happened since
- 31 Jan 2026 Online Safety Act child safety duties commenced 25 July 2025, imposing new duties on regulated online services to assess and mitigate risks to children. Ofcom monitoring implementation and enforcement. Government assessing whether additional device-level interventions are needed. Source →
- 8 Apr 2025 Leveraging Online Safety Act powers; monitoring implementation; assessing additional device-level interventions. Illegal content safety duty commenced 17 March 2025. Source →
- 21 Jan 2025 · Home Affairs Select Committee Professor Alexis Jay told Home Affairs Committee that £187m was spent on IICSA and "to date none of its final recommendations had been implemented." Called for "full implementation" saying "get it done." View source → No Meaningful Progress
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.