The UK government has published its final statement of strategic priorities (SSP) for online safety.
The Online Safety Act gives the government the power to issue the SSP to give Ofcom context and guidance on the government's policy priorities and desired outcomes in a number of areas relating to online safety. Ofcom must have regard to the SSP when exercising its online safety regulatory functions. The SSP are:
- Safety by design: Embed safety by design to deliver safe online experiences for all users but especially children, tackle violence against women and girls, and work towards ensuring that there are no safe havens for illegal content and activity, including fraud, child sexual exploitation and abuse, and illegal disinformation.
- Transparency and accountability: Ensure industry transparency and accountability for delivering on online safety outcomes, driving increased trust in services and expanding the evidence-base to provide safer experiences for users.
- Agile regulation: Deliver an agile approach to regulation, ensuring the framework is robust in monitoring and tackling emerging harms – such as AI- generated content – and increases friction for technologies which enable online harm.
- Inclusivity and resilience: Create an inclusive, informed and vibrant digital society resilient to potential harms, including disinformation.
- Technology and innovation: Foster the innovation of online safety technologies to improve the safety of users and drive growth.
Ofcom has to respond within 40 days with a report on its actions to meet the SSP. Ofcom must also, as soon as practicable after a period of 12 months from the designation of the statement and after every subsequent period of 12 months, publish a review of what it has done in the period in question in consequence of the statement.
As we wrote when the SSP were laid before parliament, this matters as the SSP set a strategic direction as well as providing some useful pointers about the government's thinking on online safety. Ofcom has published an additional consultation in the past few days on extra measures to protect people online, which shows a direction of travel. Proposals include stopping illegal content going viral, protecting children when livestreaming, and tackling intimate images shared without consent.
The SSP is useful for platforms to understand the direction of travel and the priority areas for enforcement and activity as the regime comes fully into force.
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