The UK Online Safety Bill – What You Need to Know!

Since 2021, the British government have been debating a new legislation to make the internet a safer environment for everyone. Known as the Online Safety Bill (OSB), the new law vows to update existing statutes to better regulate new apps and websites. The oversight process has been perpetual, as numerous ideas have been added and removed along the way. 

So, what’s currently happening? 

The UK government is still in debate over this one. This is due to the rising concerns about encrypted messaging being used to share illegal or even criminal content, which could lead to the ban on end-to-end encryption. This could mean tech companies such as, Facebook, Google and Apple all being forced to provide increased access to their private messaging services- or even a total ban of this type of encryption. 

The protection of children as they use the internet is of great importance to the Online Safety Bill. One of the latest updates is set to further strengthen already existing protections. Should the bill become law, we could see executive officers of large tech being prosecuted personally for breaching their duty of care to children. If minors are exposed to harmful, age-restricted or illegal content, the CEOs in charge of popular online platforms could face penalties such as fines, or even jail time. 

The OSB will be introducing a new ban on creating and sharing deepfake images. This means material that has been edited with another person’s face or distinguishing features, will be illegal. 

A lot of controversy has surrounded this part of the bill. The proposal to outlaw content deemed ‘legal but harmful’ faced backlash as the clause never actually specified what constitutes as ‘harmful content’. In fact, the original text was so vague that multiple civil liberties groups warned that the law would be used to curtail free speech online, as service providers would be forced to remove content without the evidence that it caused offence. 

The government have since reviewed this proposal and have concluded that the clause is incompatible with existing law, and potentially unenforceable, resulting in it being dropped. 

Due to the role of social media in several high-profile teen suicides, there are moves to forbid self-harm related content.

Under this proposal, internet firms will be legally obliged to identify and remove post and videos which encourage suicide or self-harm. 

Since the Online Safety Bill has been under development of such a long time, lawmakers are keen to implement it as soon as possible once passed.

Originally companies were to be given 22 months to make the required changes to become compliant.

Despite this, the text of the proposed bill has again changed, resulting in them having only 2 months to bring their operations into line. 

It is inevitable the OSB will undergo further revisions before it eventually becomes law in the UK- but whatever happens, there are set to big changes for the British internet users. We could see firms take an overly cautious approach, by automatically removing and blocking legal content to avoid potential issues that may arise. It will be fascinating to see how the situation develops, and whether any other countries follow Britain’s lead.