The United Kingdom has turned one of its wide-ranging pieces of legislation regulating how Big Tech firms manage privacy and youth access to the internet into law.
The U.K.'s Online Safety Bill, a bill that Parliament has debated and processed for years, received royal assent on Thursday, which means that it is now law. Tech companies will now have new obligations in the UK involving how they design, operate, and moderate content. Platforms will be required to take additional actions to address underage access to online pornography, anonymous trolling, scam ads, the sharing of harmful AI-generated images, and the spread of child sexual abuse material.
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The Online Safety Bill is meant to make the U.K. "the safest place in the world to be online while defending free expression," the government said in a policy paper.
Online platforms will have some time to abide by the demands of the OSB. Ofcom, the U.K. telecoms regulator, intends to publish its rules in three phases. The first phase will deal with how platforms should handle terrorism and child-sexual-abuse-related content and will release rules in late 2024. The second phase will focus on child safety and will release rules around verifying users' age before allowing access to pornography and see the release of rules in 2025. Finally, the third phase will focus on transparency reports and combating scams online.
A failure to comply with these guidelines could lead to companies being hit with fines of up to $22 million.
The Online Safety Bill has been a contentious piece of legislation, with several public websites pushing back on it. Encrypted app developers like WhatsApp and Signal objected to clauses that they claim would undermine their end-to-end encryption practice in an effort to combat pornographic content. The apps have threatened to leave the U.K. if the bill forces them to undermine their encryption practices.
The Wikimedia Foundation has pushed back on the legislation, alleging that the bill's framing would create issues for websites like Wikipedia by requiring them to verify users' ages before allowing access.
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The United States has seen similar legislative efforts. At least half a dozen states have passed legislation that requires technology companies to verify users' age before allowing them access to pornography.
The EARN IT Act, which would amend a key part of telecommunications law protecting websites from being sued for content posted by users to strip away the protections if the platforms violate federal laws around child sexual abuse material, was pushed through by the Senate Judiciary Committee and is awaiting a floor vote.