Ofcom, the UK's communications watchdog, has issued its first guidance for tech platforms on complying with the Online Safety Act. The guidance focuses on tackling illegal content, including child abuse online, and includes measures to combat online grooming.
Ofcom recommends that social media platforms should not suggest children as "friends" by default and suggests changes such as preventing children's location information from being revealed in their profiles or posts.
The guidance also calls for content moderation teams to have the necessary resources and proposes the use of hash-matching technology to detect child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
However, this hashing will not apply to private or encrypted messages, and Ofcom has emphasized that it is not proposing measures that would break encryption.
Powers in the bill that could compel private messaging apps to scan messages for CSAM are not expected to be consulted on until 2024 and are unlikely to come into force until around 2025.