Online Safety Bill becomes law

The Online Safety Act was made law recently, meaning technology firms bear more responsibility for the content they allow on their platforms. If they fail to comply with the rules, they will face significant fines that could reach billions of pounds and if they don’t take steps required by Ofcom to protect children, their bosses could face prison.

The act aims to make the internet safer for children and requires firms to protect children from content like child sexual abuse, controlling or coercive behaviour and promoting self-harm and suicide. Other powers will include cyber-flashing (sending unsolicited sexual imagery online) being an offence and making it easier for bereaved parents to obtain information about their children from tech firms.

Within education it is essential that pupils are safeguarded from potential harmful and inappropriate online material. Governing boards and trusts should ensure that their school has appropriate filtering and monitoring on school devices and school networks and that they regularly review their effectiveness. The measures in place should be detailed within the school/trust IT (or other relevant) policies. The board should ensure that the leadership team and relevant staff have an awareness and understanding of the provisions in place and manage them effectively. Governing boards and school/trust leaders should consider the age range of their pupils, the number of pupils, how often they access the IT system and the proportionality of costs verses safeguarding risks.

NSPCC Chief Executive, Sir Peter Wanless said: “Having an Online Safety Act on the statute book is a watershed moment and will mean that children up and down the UK are fundamentally safer in their everyday lives.”

For subscribing schools and academies The Devon Education Service (DES) Governance Consultancy Team has a Q-card (number 32) that deals with online safety.