The UK Online Safety Act is Here

The UK Online Safety Act is Here

For all the controversy during its passage, as the UK Online Safety Act has moved towards having an operational enforcement regime, the online conversation doesn’t really seem to have shifted in urgency.

Today is particularly relevant – the provisions for governing User-to-User services are now in effect, with in-scope providers required to have completed their risk assessments yesterday (March 16th).

And the Act has teeth: Ofcom has powers to fine up to £18 million or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue, and to work with payment providers, advertisers and ISPs to stop you working in the UK.

Are You Safe from the Online Safety Act?

Should you be concerned? Probably, yes – the coverage of in-scope providers is very large. It’s not just about protecting children from pornography, and it doesn’t just apply to the major social networks – even hobbyists are (controversially) in scope.

If you have any user-to-user functionality, you’re in scope. This doesn’t just cover networking applications (both professional and personal), but also user forums, and even blog commenting systems where users can reply to each other.

So that product support forum you have knocking about? Professional peer chat system? Yeah, they’re bringing you inside the scope of the Act.

Impact Outside the UK

Of course, it’s a UK Act, but like GDPR, it asserts extra-territorial scope (again, controversially). So if you have a UK base of operations or UK userbase, you’re in scope.

What Do I Do Next?

The first step is your risk assessment. There are 17 harm types (from financial crime to terrorism to bullying) to consider. Based on your risk assessment, there are up to 39 measures (from online functionality to business processes) which you may then need to implement.

The best time to do this? Well, yesterday. But the second best time is today.

We can help: we’ve put together a streamlined tool which can quickly guide you through the risk assessment and help you to determine the actual measures you need to comply with, and give you an action plan to get in compliance.

Let’s get you on track. Contact us today.