UK Online Safety Act Children's Safety Duties

Start by deciding whether the service is a regulated user-to-user service or search service that is likely to be accessed by children. If it is, the core question is what proportionate measures the provider must take to protect children from harmful and age-inappropriate content, including safety-by-design measures, age assurance where relevant, and clear reporting and complaints routes.

Keep the Online Safety Act source, service-scope decision, user-to-user/search feature map, risk assessment, code-of-practice mapping, age-assurance evidence, and Ofcom-facing record together so each control can be traced back to the duty it supports.

Ownership should sit with the team that can change service design, moderation, recommender systems, age assurance, reporting, complaints, terms, or transparency data, with legal and trust-safety review.

Evidence should show service categorisation, illegal-content risk assessment, children access assessment, children risk assessment, mitigation controls, age-assurance decisions, terms/complaints records, and Ofcom reporting readiness.

Most Online Safety Act mistakes happen at the boundary between user-to-user, search, pornography, category, child-access, illegal-content, and transparency duties.

Use this section before launching a user feature, recommender change, moderation change, age-assurance flow, complaint process, or transparency-reporting process.

Use an Online Safety Act workflow that captures service scope, user groups, risk assessment, code mapping, child-access status, mitigation owner, evidence, and Ofcom escalation path.

The output should be a service-scope memo, risk assessment, children access assessment, mitigation plan, age-assurance decision, complaint workflow, or transparency-report evidence pack.