OSA Reference Materials
Previous consultations and Ofcom publications
Regulatory Design
- Ofcom’s proposed plan of work 2025/6 - CONSULTATION (Ofcom) - CLOSED 29 January 2025
- Researchers’ access to information from online services - CALL FOR EVIDENCE (Ofcom) - CLOSED 17 January 2025
- Online safety: fees and penalties - CONSULTATION (Ofcom) - CLOSED 9 January 2025
- Implementing the Online Safety Act: progress update - ROADMAP (updated) - 17 October 2024
- Countdown to a safer life online - PRESS RELEASE (Ofcom) - 17 October 2024
- Draft transparency reporting guidance - CONSULTATION (Ofcom) - closed 4 October 2024
- Online safety information guidance - CONSULTATION (Ofcom) - closed 4 October
- Exchange of letters between DSIT and Ofcom on “small but risky services” - Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP to Dame Melanie Dawes (10 September 2024); Dame Melanie Dawes to Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP (11 September 2024)
- Illegal harms further consultation: torture and animal cruelty - CONSULTATION (Ofcom) - closed 11 September 2024
- Nowhere to hide for tech firms on online safety - PRESS RELEASE (Ofcom) - published 26 July 2024
- Protecting children from harms online - CONSULTATION (Ofcom) - closed 17 July 2024
- Ofcom’s Three-Year Media Literacy Strategy - CONSULTATION - closed 24 June 2024
- Evaluating online safety measures - ECONOMIC DISCUSSION PAPER (Ofcom) - published 24 May 2024
- Additional duties for regulated services - CALL FOR EVIDENCE (Ofcom) - closed 20 May 2024
- A quick guide to Children’s Safety Codes - Ofcom - published 7 May 2024
- Online Safety: our research agenda - RESEARCH (Ofcom) - published 15 April 2024
- Letter from Ofcom Chief Executive, Melanie Dawes, to Parliamentarians - published 26 March 2024
- Ofcom plan of work 2024-2025 - published 26 March 2024
- Categorisation - advice submitted to Secretary of State - RESEARCH (Ofcom) - published 25 March 2024
- Pornography review - CALL FOR EVIDENCE (DSIT) - closed 7 March 2024
- Guidance for service providers publishing pornographic content - CONSULTATION (Ofcom) - closed 5 March 2024
- Protecting people from illegal harm online - CONSULTATION (Ofcom) - closed 23 February 2024
- Ofcom’s proposed plan of work 2024/5 - CONSULTATION - closed 9 February 2024
- Why size and risk matter in our approach to online safety - NEWS ARTICLE (Ofcom) - published 31 January 2024
- Principles for media literacy by design - CONSULTATION (Ofcom) - closed 15 January 2024
- Super complaints: eligible entity criteria and procedural requirements - CONSULTATION (DSIT) - closed 11 January 2024
- Implementing the Online Safety Act: protecting children from online pornography - PRESS RELEASE (Ofcom) - published 5 December 2023
- Introduction to the Online Safety Act and the illegal harms consultation; Demystifying the Online Safety Act risk assessments; and An introduction to Ofcom’s draft Codes of Practice for illegal harm - WEBINARS (Ofcom) - December 2023 & January 2024
- Illegal harms consultation - PRESS RELEASE (Ofcom) - published 9 November 2023
- Ofcom’s approach to implementing the Online Safety Act - ROADMAP (updated) - published 26 October 2023
- Call for Evidence on categorisation - CONSULTATION (Ofcom) - closed 12 September 2023
- Update: How Ofcom is preparing to regulate online safety - ROADMAP (updated) - published 15 June 2023
- How we are approaching online safety risk assessments - BLOG POST -published 14 March 2023
- Online safety and data protection - JOINT STATEMENT by Ofcom and ICO - published 25 November 2022
- First year of video-sharing platform regulation - REPORT - published 20 October 2022
- How people are harmed online - RESEARCH - published 21 September 2022
- Online safety and competition in digital markets - JOINT STATEMENT by Ofcom and CMA - published 14 July 2022
- Ofcom’s roadmap to online safety regulation - ROADMAP - published 6 July 2022
Harmful Content
- Ofcom decision on Mintstars under the VSP regulations - published 23 January 2025
- Understanding Online Communications Amongst Children - RESEARCH - published 16 December 2024
- Consulting children about online safety - RESEARCH - published 16 December 2024
- Open letter to UK online service providers regarding Generative AI and chatbots- LETTER (Ofcom) - 8 November 2024
- Tackling illegal content online and implementation of the OSA - letter from Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP to Dame Melanie Dawes - 16 October 2024
- Crackdown on intimate image abuse as government strengthens online safety laws - PRESS RELEASE (DSIT) - 13 September 2024
- Open letter to UK online service providers - LETTER (Ofcom) - 7 August 2024
- Deepfake defences: mitigating the harms of deceptive deepfakes - DISCUSSION PAPER (Ofcom) - published 23 July 2024
- Red-teaming for GenAI harms - revealing the risks and rewards for online safety - DISCUSSION PAPER (Ofcom) - published 23 July 2024
- Ofcom FOI response on definition of harmful misinformation - published 29 August 2024
- Ofcom open letter to UK online services - published 4 August 2024
- Understanding pathways to violent content among children - RESEARCH - published 15 March 2024
- Encountering violent content online starts at school - NEWS ARTICLE (Ofcom) - published 15 March 2024
- Online content: qualitative research - experiences of children encountering content promoting eating disorders, suicide and self-harm - RESEARCH - published 15 March 2024
- Key attributes and experiences of cyberbullying among children in the UK - RESEARCH - published 15 March 2024
- Evaluation in online safety: a review of hate speech classification and safety measures - RESEARCH (Ofcom) - published 12 March 2024
- Protecting people from hate and terrorism under the online safety regime - NEWS ARTICLE (Ofcom) - published 22 February 2024
- Understanding children’s experiences to inform our online safety work - NEWS ARTICLE (Ofcom) - published 9 February 2024
- Tackling child sexual abuse under the online safety regime - NEWS ARTICLE (Ofcom) - published 8 February 2024
- Cyberflashing, epilepsy trolling and fake news to put online abusers behind bars from today - PRESS RELEASE (DSIT) - published 31 January 2024
- ISD reports into online terrorism, violence and hate - RESEARCH - published 19 September 2023
- Content moderation in user-to-user services - RESEARCH - published 14 September 2023
- Evaluating Recommender Systems in relation to Illegal and harmful content -RESEARCH - published 6 July 2023
- Mitigating the risk of illegal content - RESEARCH - published 17 May 2023
- Online fraud and scams - RESEARCH - published 16 March 2023
- The impact of online hate - RESEARCH - published 6 February 2023
- Use of AI in online content moderation - RESEARCH - published 18 July 2019
Search Services
- Search engines can act as one-click gateways to self-harm and suicide content - RESEARCH - published 31 January 2024
- Assessing the risk of foreign interference in search results - RESEARCH - published 19 September 2023
- Sale of prohibited items on search services - RESEARCH - published 19 September 2023
- Online content for us in the commission of fraud on search services - RESEARCH - published 19 September 2023
User Experiences
- Online Nation 2024 - RESEARCH - published 28 November 2024
- A feasibility study of using wellbeing metrics to evaluate outcomes in online safety - ECONOMIC DISCUSSION PAPER - 8 October 2024
- Ofcom’s final media literacy strategy - 7 October 2024
- Ofcom’s three-year media literacy strategy: responses to consultation - CONSULTATION RESPONSE (Ofcom) - 7 October 2024
- Online services pledge to prioritise media literacy - PRESS RELEASE (Ofcom) - 7 October 2024
- How accurate are Twitch’s new content classification labels? - RESEARCH - published 2 September 2024
- Exploring high media literacy levels among children 8-12 - RESEARCH - published 15 March 2024
- Experiences of using online services - TRACKER - last updated 27 July 2023
- Video sharing platform users experiences and attitudes - RESEARCH - published 20 October 2022
- Online Nation 2022 - RESEARCH - published 1 June 2022
Parliamentary and legislative documents
- Online Safety Act implementation - WRITTEN MINISTERIAL STATEMENT (DSIT) - published 16 December 2024
- Explanatory notes for the Online Safety Act - published 27 November 2023
- The Online Safety Act 2023 - published 30 October 2023
- Online Safety Act - legislation.gov.uk page with links to the Act, commencement orders, regulations etc.
- Online Safety Bill: progress of the Bill - RESEARCH - House of Commons library - 26 October 2023
- Online Safety Bill - Parliamentary webpage with links to all the Bill’s stages, including debates, Committee transcripts, amendments and other links
Commentary
- Overwhelming support for Online Safety Act as rules making the UK the safest place in the world to be online become law - PRESS RELEASE - Department of Science, Innovation and Technology - 27 October 2023
- UK children and adults to be safer as world-leading Bill comes law - PRESS RELEASE - Department of Science, Innovation and Technology -
26 October 2023 - “Britain makes the internet safer” - PRESS RELEASE - Department of Science, Innovation and Technology - 19 September 2023
- Online Safety Bill resource page - repository of analysis, publications and blogs from Carnegie UK’s Online Harms programme (2018-2023)
Consultation responses
Protection of children (Ofcom) - closed 17 July 2024
- VAWG sector response
- 5 Rights Foundation response
- NSPCC response
- Children’s coalition statement
- OSA Network response
- Family Online Safety Institute response
Super-complaints (DSIT) - closed
- Summary of responses from DSIT - published 16 April 2024
Illegal harms (Ofcom) - closed 23 February 2024
- Clean up the Internet response
- 5 Rights Foundation response
- Prof Clare McGlynn - University of Durham
- Institute for Strategic Dialogue response
- NSPCC response
- OSA Network response
- VAWG sector response
- UCL Gender and Tech Research Group response
- Which? response
