Charities warn Ofcom too soft on Online Safety Act violators As UK ministers continue to quiz stakeholders over the effectiveness of the Online Safety Act, one charity chief raised concerns over the robustness of Ofcom's enforcement of the controversial legislation. Asked about how well the communications regulator has enforced penalties on organizations that violate the OSA, or fail to …
It pains me to say it, but there seems to be a fashion for eponymous laws as a method of expiating guilt by blaming "the other" for one's own neglect (even if that neglect is only perceived); which is replacing any fundamental and critical examination of the problem at hand. Teen suicides were a thing long before the internet, and I'm not sure that coroner's reports and evidence from parents are giving us a complete picture of the internal anguish of the deceased, let alone the ways to divert them from self-destruction.
About the same as I'd feel if a racist waving a St. George flag burst into my daughter in a public toilet.
Which one do you think is more likely to sexually abuse her? How many men on that "Unite the Right" march have convictions for sexual assault and domestic abuse?
I know which group my daughter needs protection from, and it's not the trannys.
What about a non-racist waving a St. George flag?
Or a racist waving a Palestinian flag?
Or a non-racist waving a Palestinian flag?
Or a racist waving a tea towel?
Or a journalist waving a microphone?
Or a journalist waving a tea towel?
Come on, we need to know the victimisation hierarchy.
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Yup.....millions are using VPN technology....so the Online Safety Act is actually a joke.
Yup.....no one is enforcing the 30mph speed limit in streets in London.
Yup.....GDPR is a joke.
Yup.....Ofwat can't stop our rivers overflowing with sewage.
Yup....."PREVENT" doesn't prevent anything.
Oh....and about the SW1 chatter about enforcement.........just window dressing!
Oh...and another thing.....The Plod don't have adequate IT resources for "enforcement"....see:
- Link: https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/09/nca_legacy_tech/
ALL PURE THEATRE!!!
Yup.....no one is enforcing the 30mph speed limit in streets in London.
That’s possibly because the speed limit in London is now 20mph. I know this because my cab driver told me a couple of weeks ago. I was in a hurry to get home to let a locked out elderly neighbour in to their house with the spare set of keys I have of theirs. He said he’d like to go faster to help me out, but that’s the new Londonwide limit. He then pointed out that we were on the Cromwell Road (a dual carriageway) at 12:30am and there wasn’t anyone around but the new limit was 20mph even on dual carriageways in the middle of the night
20mph ... on the Cromwell Road
Large parts of Cromwell Road are four-lane but not dual-carriageway, there are frequent sets of traffic lights at junctions and a lot of it is residential. Going faster than 20 or 30 is dangerous and also pointless as one has to slow for the next junction anyway.
Even so, the 20mph limit shown on the tiny speed limit signs doesn't seem to be known to the car, taxi & van drivers using it. God help you if you dawdle a bit on the pedestrian crossings when the traffic light turns from red to red & amber - it's like a Formula One grid start!
Forty years ago I lived in South Kensington and had to cross Cromwell Road every day - if the kinetic impact didn't get you the exhaust fumes eventually would. I moved out of London - the crapper of Northern European capital cities - but I'd be very grateful when I visit if the 20 limit were being enforced or observed. It isn't.
Some of the sites are using some common sense (I know: Doesn't sound likely, but apparently it's happening).
for example: The age of the account. If it's over x years old, it has to be an adult. Similarly, if the account has records of payments via credit card that matches the user: That's proof the person is an adult. Things like that.
With google, you have to turn off safe search to see the adult stuff in images. And it's only pointing people to the websites that provide that material, and those are the sites that have to do the age verification (Or just outright block users from the UK, but you still get the thumbnails. Yes, that even happens when you're looking for 'SFW' pictures and try clicking on a site that also supplies 'NSFW' stuff).
YouTube, owned by Google is constantly broadcasting scam ads. I reported 2 in the last few months, and in both cases got the reply "we've determined that the ads don't go against our policy, so no further action will be taken".
The ASA says to let them know, and they'll try and help the ad companies know which adverts are fake, and need removing. Nothing about suing their arses for allowing such ads to be broadcast.
If I was the owner of a terrestrial TV channel whose ad revenue has been decimated by online ads, I'd be pushing this issue all the way.
Can you imagine if ITV showed adverts for:
The rules for the internet cannot match the rules for newspapers and broadcast TV without killing it.
How late would your train or bus be if you had to go through airline-style security before boarding? Is it OK to be less safe on a train or bus? Yes. Because it isn't viable to treat them like airlines.
But the rules ARE the same. See: "When it comes to the regulation of online advertising, we’ve got it covered."
Beside, there's a big difference between supposedly reputable companies such as Google and twitter, and some dodgy random.site.name which no-one has heard of.
Your example is completely different. It's not a valid analogy at all
:-)
The scheme originated from the US, where most people have cable TV.
They were basically saying you can get rid of your cable TV, install this "thing" and get all these channels for free (the over the air free-to-view ones). I'm not sure how many Americans didn't know about broadcast TV over an aerial, but the advert implies it's many.
It doesn't make sense in the UK. It's like saying "the cable and satellite companies don't want you to know this! Buy this gadget, you can ditch your sky/Virgin subscriptions and get all your channels on this freeview thing that no-one knows about)
[Caution: May contain traces of rant.]
The worst way you could do this is throw it to every individual site and service, with a long and vague list of requirements, and say "Comply!". That a Baroness now wants to be even harsher (because it's apparently not working) shows just how ridiculously out of touch the "ruling" class is with the online world (and the real world, tbh). Enforce, provide safe harbour and innovate at the same time? They're pulling in different directions!
Let's just legislate for the existence of unicorns, shall we? What? There aren't any unicorns yet? Obviously "Ofunicorn" needs more powers (because it couldn't possibly be that the legislation was totally f***ed in the first place).
People using VPNs? Quick, shut that down! (Or could it be that the idea was terrible from the get go?)
Without endpoint control, kids will find workarounds. If individual sites and services collect IDs, privacy will never be achieved. This is an architectural problem that band-aid fixes won't resolve. And it's frustratingly plain that privacy was never seriously considered when this harebrained scheme was cooked up.
The only reasonable way to protect kids online is to gate their access at the endpoint (device, laptop, desktop). Enterprises enforce endpoint security for good reason. This has been covered in detail, and it's a rather long discussion, so I won't repeat it all here but, for a quick example, give the kids a school laptop and a dumb phone, prevent them from using anything other than those or a school/library computer, and white-list their access. That'd also be cheaper for parents.
That leaves the adults alone to do whatever the heck they want in peace, privacy preserved, and even with the prospect of being able to enhance user privacy with zero impact to kids safety.
But, no. Throw vague requirements and poorly-written legislation to the winds and jump up and down when it dismally fails, because that's how they think. Or, rather, don't.
The country deserves better than to be "ruled" by a bunch of f***wits regardless of whatever good intentions they may have had at the beginning.
The OSA is all-encompassing, vague, and impossible to enforce. But it appears to "do something" about "bad things", so the law must be "good".
The sooner government, and the population, realise that regulating international internet services is impossible (until we get rid of country borders and have a single global legal system for everyone) the better.
The Bad People are not going to stop what they're doing just because Ofcom asked them nicely, or started an investigation into them.
Allowing "dodgy websites" to avoid the OSA by geoblocking "UK" IP addresses is a classic symptom of the problem. Ofcom cannot enforce the OSA in foreign countries, so to avoid losing face ("Oh, look, none of those popular global websites have implemented Highly Effective Age Assurance[*], the OSA is pointless") they allowed geoblocking as a quick-and-easy solution for foreign websites who could be bothered to do something, but didn't want to apply HEAA to all their visitors. So we end up with a flimsy "UK firewall" that is implemented by only a handful of foreign websites, is full of holes, and easy to avoid with a VPN or TOR browser.
There are certainly problems that need to be solved, but the OSA cannot be a solution to any of them.
[*] A whole new can-of-worms, with real privacy dangers.
I wouldn't be surprised if OSA wasn't a hostile state lobbying effort.
These age check companies in questionable jurisdictions known for affiliations with certain hostile states got an opportunity to build a superb database of British citizens and their embarrassing habits.
It seems like our security services are not doing their jobs well.
Quote One: "Baroness Kidron.......'....the act is wrong in certain places...' Kidron said...."
Quote Two: "....I'm very sympathetic to Ofcom ... where they feel they need a power and it has not been provided by Parliament."
Hah...."wrong in certain places"
Hah...."power...not...provided by Parliament"
So, Baroness Kidron.....where were you when the Act was being drafted?
I think we deserve an expanation!!
....and not lame chatter after the fact!!
....or maybe this is all coded talk meaning the Act is not fit for purpose!!
Will the stakeholders include those who have given personal data to the age verifiers and may have concerns abut security? As the likes of Kidron have this extended to more sources of information such as Wikipedia* it's likely to become an issue for all of us.
* If the kids are using it to research their English history homework they're likely to come across a lot of distressing material.
Okay, there's often a reason why enforcement is a threat rather than an action. Just remember the extreme p**n law from some years ago.
One case got taken to court. First one. Enforcement in action! A cartoon tiger with a middle eastern woman engaging in some adult interactions. Clearly a breach of the law! Slam dunk case! Until, in court, the defendant asked for the court to turn the sound up... and the court hear the tiger say 'It beats selling cornflakes'.
So not a realistic depiction of man and beast. Case dismissed and the law lost a hell of a lot of its bite.
That's why the OSA isn't being enforced: It would get to go before a Judge, and when that happens, the legality of the law gets tested and it's that point when the courts can limit or even overturn the law as unworkable, unenforceable or excessive. But threaten to enforce it: Get people used to it: Keep it there in the background... that's how the law establishes itself before it can be challenged and so is more likely to survive that first encounter with a Judge.
So perhaps there's a silver lining from all these people screaming it's not doing what they'd hoped it would: More chance a Pss poor case gets to court and it all gets thrown out.
The activists want to close off, block and shut down even more of the net. They believe they have the backing of the public. When the election comes around, they will find out that they do not, because neither the party that cooked up this censorship nor the party that passed it will stand a snowball in hell's chance of winning.
You censored my net and you want my vote. Nah. Not happening.
before they come for the streaming sites?
Especially since you could be seeing violent movies, people taking drugs, getting exploded, bad language... but god forbid you see a nipple after someone's T-shirt gets wet.
And as for 3rd party who.knows.com as an age ID provider needing your mugshot, passport, credit card and address and oops they were hacked. still better honesty as your neighbours find out you view furry animal porn and engauge in tying your missus to the bed before licking horseradish sauce off her... well lets not go there.
The OSA is a shite show... and the sooner its forced into court in front of a judge the better. and hopefully get it re-written.... government run ID site... needs your passport number and that it. failing that... block anything deemed 'harmful' at the ISP.s
Have you lost your mind? You're advocating for:
> government run ID site... needs your passport number and that it.
Everyone having to identify themselves to the government before accessing the Internet.
> failing that... block anything deemed 'harmful' at the ISP.s
And forcing ISPs to implement an undemocratic and unaccountable censorship regime.
This is a great description of how the Internet works in China. So maybe you're Boris the Chinese Cockroach?
I am just waiting for the great firewall of the UK just like China. Get VPN providers to age check? Really. Unless the government is going to fundamentally change the way the internet works, bit like North Korea. Hmmmm. A pattern is emerging here. Are we are going Communist?
Age verification does nothing to stop access to porn sites, and kids are a damned sight smarter and tech savvy than the morons who threw this crap legislation together. I am sure everyone has heard about 4Chan saying to Ofcom go do one and has taken them to court in the US. Its like the government thinks its laws extend globally when in reality it doesnt even work here. And (unless the government turns into the Democratic Republic of North London) theres not much they can do about VPN's and circumventing any blocks that are put in place.
Also I find it bewildering that parents of children who do stupid things quickly place the blame on the website providers. You dont look at something unless you are looking for it. Shifting the blame for x or y doing or seeing something online to websites instead of parental responsiblity is just pathetic.
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