The Online Safety Act 2023 (the “Act”) intends to “make the UK the safest place in the world to be online” (UK Government).
It aims to protect against illegal online content, lawful content which is harmful to children and fraudulent advertising, while safeguarding freedom of expression.
However, the Act imposes wide-ranging duties of care requiring broad changes not just to many organisations’ online practices but also to their governance and operations frameworks.
Our team of specialists include some of the leading legal commentators in this new area of law, and are here to advise the 100,000 organisations which Ofcom believes will fall to be regulated. We focus on client-centric and commercial solutions to the questions the new Act poses.
What we do
Our specialists advise all organisations – from businesses to charities – on compliance, including:
- services which fall within the Act (from specific reviews, scaling up to holistic reviews of all services);
- scope of the many duties of care;
- responses to Ofcom’s requests for information and consultations;
- compliance with secondary legislation; and
- liabilities (including of senior management), fines, cyber offences and service cessation orders.
Combining broad experience with expert analysis, we help organisations make the changes necessary to ensure compliance, always ensuring solutions are commercial and client-centric.
How we do it
We initially distil the complexities of the Act to ask organisations easy and concise questions to identify key areas for compliance.
Based on the answers, we tailor our analysis to a client’s specific industry and commercial requirements and recommend commercially advantageous solutions to ensure compliance.
We also advise organisations facing regulatory action or litigation, including on the Act’s intermediary liability which arises when an organisation is on notice of hosting inappropriate content but fails to act expeditiously.
We act on all online safety disputes and advise on the wave of new communications offences the Act introduces.
