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Social Media: Fraud and Hacking

Asked by Kate OsamorLabour (Co-op)Department for Science, Innovation and TechnologyTabled Answered 14 October 2024UIN 6333

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to help ensure that social media companies provide adequate support to customers who are the subject of hacking and fraud.

Answered by Feryal Clark

As fraud offences are ‘priority offences’ under the Online Safety Act (OSA), all user-to-user services in scope must prevent illegal fraudulent content from appearing on their platforms and swiftly remove if it does. They must also effectively mitigate the risk of their service being used to facilitate fraud.

The OSA also requires in-scope platforms to provide accessible complaints and appeals procedures for their users. Additionally, those services over the designated threshold (Category 1 services) must uphold their terms of service.

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