The user-safety practices of tech firms will be put under the spotlight under draft transparency reporting plans announced by Ofcom today.
Under the Online Safety Act, ‘categorised services’, which we expect to include some of the most widely used social media and search services, are required to produce transparency reports at least annually. This means that, for the first time in the UK, big tech must publish detailed information about the safety of their platforms for all to see.
Ofcom is today consulting on draft industry guidance setting out our proposed approach to issuing ‘transparency notices’ to applicable online services. These notices will be issued by Ofcom, starting in 2025 subject to secondary legislation being passed. They’ll set out the detailed safety information that providers must reveal in their transparency reports, the format it should take, and the deadline by which they must make it public.
The information that we’ll require companies to publish will differ from platform to platform, taking account of the type of service, its number of users, the proportion who are children, along with certain other factors. Data we could compel companies to disclose might include, for example: how prevalent illegal content is on their service, how many users have come across such content, and the effectiveness of features used by a platform to protect children.
Ofcom will also shine a light on the best and worst practices across the industry through our own summary reports. These will help us to drive better safety outcomes for users in two ways. First, people will be able to judge whether firms are doing enough to make their platforms safe and how different services compare. This will help them to make informed decisions about what apps and sites they’re comfortable for themselves and their children to use.
Second, by revealing what goes on within popular sites and apps, we ultimately hope to encourage firms to go even further to improve their safety standards.
Information is power: demanding data to ensure effective regulation
Complementing our transparency reporting powers, the Online Safety Act also gives Ofcom wide-ranging powers to access information held by regulated tech firms, as well as a wide range of third parties. This is fundamental to our role as regulator. These powers will help us to understand the effectiveness of the safety measures tech firms have in place and to gather evidence if we have specific compliance concerns.
We have today published a second consultation, which sets out our draft guidance for industry on our general approach to our online safety information gathering powers and their duties to comply. It covers the wide range of circumstances in which we might use these powers, including for example to:
- carry out an audit of a tech firm’s safety measures or features;
- remotely inspect the workings of their algorithms in real time;
- obtain information to allow us to respond to a Coroner’s request in the event of the death of a child; and
- in exceptional cases, enter UK premises of tech companies to access information and examine equipment.
Firms can face enforcement action or, in the most serious cases, criminal liability for failure to respond to information notices in an accurate, complete and timely way.
Next steps
Failure to comply with either a transparency or information notice from Ofcom could result in tech companies facing fines of up to £18m or 10% of a company’s worldwide revenue - whichever is higher. We recently fined TikTok, under the separate rules governing video-sharing platforms, for failing to respond to a request for information about its parental controls.
Responses to both our transparency and information gathering guidance consultations must be submitted to Ofcom by 4 October 2024. Subject to responses, we expect to publish our final guidance by early 2025.
Our comprehensive transparency powers under the Act will be transformational in shining a light on the best and worst safety practices across the industry - encouraging safety by design – and empowering users.
And whether it’s to remotely view how a platform’s algorithm works in real-time, or to carry out an audit of a firm’s safety features, where needed we’ll be able to look under the bonnet of tech companies using our extensive information-gathering powers.
Gill Whitehead, Group Director, Online Safety