Ofcom is preparing to ramp up enforcement of the Online Safety Act by hiring hundreds of additional staff, including from Big Tech firms.
The Online Safety Act, which became law in October last year, is the British government’s bid to make the internet a safer place by setting stricter standards of conduct on social media and digital spaces.
First reported by the Financial Times, Ofcom – which was granted additional regulatory powers by the Online Safety Act – has been preparing to impose its remit with a flurry of tactical hires.
They include senior staff from firms like Google, Meta and Microsoft.
The online safety team currently consists of just under 350 people, with 100 additional hires planned this year.
The act puts the onus on tech firms to monitor, prevent and remove harmful content hosted on their platforms, including those related to bullying and self-harm. The act also aims to require tougher barriers for children to access inappropriate content such as pornography.
In November, Ofcom published its first guidance for conduct for online companies. The guidance included removing access to suggested friends – a feature of social media platforms where users are advertised as potential friends to other accounts – for children.
The guidance also suggested “hash matching”, a process in which images are compared with a database of content deemed harmful to flag similarities.
The act has already become law, though there remains a debate over its role in monitoring end-to-end encrypted messages.
Ministers were unable to force tech firms to monitor encrypted messages due to backlash over privacy concerns and insurmountable technical barriers.
However, the tech secretary has maintained that “companies should only implement end-to-end encryption if they can simultaneously prevent abhorrent child sexual abuse on their platforms”.
In December, Meta began rolling out end-to-end encryption for Facebook Messenger.