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Internet: Offences against Children

Asked by Dan AldridgeLabourDepartment for Science, Innovation and TechnologyTabled Answered 31 March 2025UIN 40358

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to ensure Ofcom requires all user-to-user services to remove child sexual abuse content from their platforms.

Answered by Feryal Clark

The Online Safety Act creates new duties on online services to tackle illegal content and activity. The strongest duties are to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation (CSEA) and to stop child sexual abuse material (CSAM) from being shared. The illegal content duties have been in effect from 17 March. Ofcom is the regulator for the regime and has set out steps providers can take including strong automated content moderation and takedown measures. Ofcom will continue to develop their codes iteratively, including additional measures to detect, prevent and remove CSAM.

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