Ofcom outlines age check methods ahead of social media ban for under-16s Source: BBC News

 

 

BBC News reported on OFCOM's emerging guidance on requirments to age check young people under 16 who will be the arget of the UK's law against access to social media for under 16 year olds. The legislation is due to become law in March 2027 and the guidelines are being made available so that Tech companies can ensure that they comply. 

The onus will be on the Tech companies to ensure that their users are 16 or over before allowing access.  

Similar laws in Australia came into force in 2025 but reported would suggest that many young people have found was around the restrictions.

The UK intends to strengthen the requirements to ensure that the planned restriction are complied with and will include: 

• photo ID matching, where relevant information on a photo ID document such as a passport is checked against a live image taken during an age check
• banking-based checks, which involves using the information a financial institution has on record regarding a user's age
• face age estimation technology (which the regulator argues has recently improved)
• digital ID services, which enable people to digitally prove who they are or provide information about themselves, such as their age.

 Read the full story here.

 

 

Online safety laws have failed to protect children in UK, Ofcom admits Source: The Guardian

 

The Guardian newspaper reports that the UK Online Safety Laws, designed to protect children online are failing. The report states that the regulations failed to limit the proportion of children suffering harm from social media, the UK’s online regulator has admitted, in an assessment branded “staggering” by campaigners.

OFCOM, the UK regulator for reported that 'at a total level there was no significant change in the proportion of children encountering harmful content over the first nine months after the children’s safety duties came into force in July 2025'. 

This makes for disappointing reading  but it is clear that governments can only ngo so far in a fairly unregulated world. Once one site or online service is dealt with others pop up to replace them. 

It is true that government action in a number of countries have applied pressure to some major players to take more responsibility for what appears on their platforms their actions have not been sufficient to solve the problems that exist for children online. 

Parents clearly still have a critical roll in keeping their families safe bu monitoring what they are doing, who they are communicating with, and building family relationships which ensure that children share their concerns and what they are doing online.

Read the full story here.

 

UK watchdogs urged to tackle suicide social media content after death of girl, 14 Source: The Guardian

 

 

A new report in the Guardian Newspaper describes the death of a14-year-old schoolgirl after TikTok served her suicide content has resuklted in demands that the UK watchdogs should crack down on  what the describe as “toxic” social media feeds.

Melanie Dawes, the chief executive of the regulator Ofcom, told parliament “We do not see a safety culture from these large social media companies … they are very slow to acknowledge that there are risks of criminal action, child grooming and also some of these issues of the way the algorithms feed suicide and self-harm material.” She added that “trust they can clean up their own services is simply not there”.

No doubt the UK regulator OFCOM will take the necessary steps to try to address these concerns as the Internet Safety Act strengthens over time.

 Read the full article here. 

 

‘Stranger Danger’ tops parents’ online gaming worries Source: UK OFCOM

 

This report from the UK Telecoms regulator OFCOM covering concerns of parents regarding strangers communicating with their children through online games

This comes as more than half (55%) of children who game online say they play with people they have never met offline at least sometimes, while one in five (20%) do so all or most of the time they play.

Talking to strangers (64%) ranks ahead of parental concerns about bullying by other players (60%), seeing inappropriate content such as violence, bad language or disturbing material (59%), and pressure to make in-game purchases (51%).

OFCOM has launched a programme to support parents to help keep their children safe online. The programme, called 'Power Up' is available on the OFCOM site here. 

Read the full report here. 

 

 

 

Parental Screen Time and Children’s Screen Habits Source: Digital Parenting Lab

 

 

Not a News item as such but this Blog post does make interesting reading. The post explores the issues faced by parents in the modern internet age, beset as we are, by mobile devices, interactive games and social media.

The post discusses how typical parents use mobile devices to babysit their children or as rewards for certain behaviour. It goes on to consider the perils of too much screen time and impact of too much time spent by young children looking at screens.

The blog post invites a continued debate about such issues and encourage parents to discuss issues with others faced with the same issues and concerns.

 Read the full post here.