We welcome the return of the Online Safety Bill (OSB) to Parliament, which represents an important step forward in making the internet safer for children in the UK.
However, we are concerned that the Bill does not go far enough to protect children from pornographic content. Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act was supposed to strengthen the regulation of online pornography, including by introducing age verification to prevent children from accessing pornographic content, and to address the disparity between offline and online content standards. However, while this legislation was passed by Parliament, it was not commenced – leaving millions of children vulnerable to accessing harmful pornographic content.
The Online Safety Bill is not as strong as the Digital Economy Act was on pornography. This briefing presents the case for redrafting Part 5 of the OSB to address this.