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.

 

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. 

 

Children's online feeds telling them 'how they should look and behave' Source: Sky News

 

A survey undertaken by Plan International UK, a charity which works to advance girls' equality would suggest that more than two-thirds of children surveyed have regularly seen content telling them how to look, dress and behave - and which careers and interests to pursue, according to research.

A charity questioned 1,440 seven to 17-year-olds and found seven in 10 girls (70%) and more than two-thirds of boys (67%) encountered such messages online.  Six in 10 (62%) young people also said they wanted social media companies to do more to remove harmful content.

The charity set up six fake TikTok accounts and found content for 13-16-year-olds became "clearly gendered" within just 20 minutes and could expose kids to "increasingly specific and harmful gendered content" after less than two hours of scrolling. 

The report describes how messages and content target girls with messages about how they should look and how they should live. Such pressure on young minds sets up unrealistic challenges to change the way they look and live.

Read more about this story here. 

 

UK to force Apple and Google to block explicit images on children’s smartphones Source: The Guardian

 

UK legislation which aims to force Apple and Google to block explicit images on children’s smartphones will be published after talks failed to produce a resolution via dialogue.

The legislation commitment puts ministers on a collision course with two of the biggest players in Silicon Valley, months after the government announced a social media ban for under-16s.

This position was reached after Apple and Google failed to reach a rsolution after a three month period and government legislation will be introduced to parliament  in the coming months.

Read the full story here. 

New evidence on online harms affecting children Source: Source: Youth Justice Board

 

The Youth Justice Board (YJB) has today published a comprehensive new 'Evidence and Insights Pack' on Online Harms Affecting Children. 

The Evidence and Insights Pack brings together the latest research, data, and practice examples from across England and Wales to improve our understanding of the risks children face online and how we safeguard them in an increasingly complex digital landscape.

The evidence pack highlights that while online platforms are central to children’s lives, they expose them to severe, overlapping risks:

• Children face a wide range of digital harms, including cyberbullying, sexual abuse, radicalisation, and exploitation.
• Exposure to harmful content and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images have become increasingly normalised among children, disproportionately affecting girls.
• Many children who engage in problematic online behaviours have complex needs or are themselves victims of abuse.
• Inadequate platform design features and a lack of digital literacy among adults significantly increases risk and hinder effective safeguarding.
• Online harms have long-lasting impacts on wellbeing and, for some children, are directly linked to involvement in offline violence.

 Access to Evidence and Insights pack here.

 

New guidance for parents and carers as AI-manipulated images of children become a growing concern Source: National Crime Agency

 

UK's National Crime Agency issued guidance for parents and carers to alert them to the growing threat of children's images shared online being manipulated into AI generated sexual abuse material. 

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and the National Crime Agency (NCA) have seen an increase in online offenders exploiting openly available images of children to create realistic sexualised content.

IWF analysts found 3,440 AI-generated videos of child sexual abuse in 2025, compared to just 13 in 2024, and the NCA have increasingly seen offenders exploiting AI technologies to target children in new ways.

 The use of AI to manipulate images posted online and turn these against the targets is not something that is easy to block or taken down, particularly when direct communications are used to make contact.

Chief Executive of the Internet watch Foundation stated that "The threat is disturbing. If someone's imagery is online, they could be easy pickings for criminals and anyone, especially children, could find themselves being targeted."

Read the guidance here. 

Porn site company fined £630,000 over failed age checks Source: BBC News

 

The UK regulator continues its challenges to Porn sites that remain open without any age verification in place. The rules regarding such material are governed by UK legislation design to prevent children and young people from accessing such content by requiring the service providers to implement effective age verification mechanisms.

 

 Failure to do this results in fines and other actions against the provider and to date a large number of such providers have obeyed the law and put controls in place. 

 

This latest story from July 2026 shows that such fines can be massive and grow should companies refuse to obey the UK legislation. If companies refuse to comply OFCOM have a range of actions they can take:

• Substantial Fines: Ofcom has the authority to fine non-compliant companies up to £18 million or 10% of their global annual turnover, whichever is higher. For example, the regulator has previously fined adult providers up to £1.35 million for failing to enforce proper age verification.  
• Daily Financial Penalties: Sites that fail to comply after being penalized or those that ignore legally binding information requests face ongoing daily financial penalties. 
• Site Blocking: In extreme cases of persistent non-cooperation or refusal to implement checks, Ofcom holds the power to block access to the website entirely within the UK.

The rules seem to be working with fines amounting to over £2.5million issued since the beginning of 2026.

 

Read the full story here. 

 

 

About 70% of babies exposed to screens, study finds Source: BBC News

 

Many of us that are involved in the cyber world may not be surprised at this report published on the BBC website.

The report refers to research commissioned by a charity called 1001 Critical Days Foundation which was founded by a former UK cabinet member and MP and aims to support the early stages of a child's life in order to give them a good start.

The study, which took place between February and April 2026, found links between higher screen use and poorer developmental outcomes, such as sleep disruption, delayed language development and behavioural issues. This is an alarming find which backs up other research undertaken around the world.

A key message is that children under two years old should not ahev any screen time and if they do it should be part of an interaction with a parent. 

Read the full story here. 

 

 

Screen time for under-fives should be limited to one hour a day, parents told Source: BBC News

 

Children under the age of five should be limited to one hour of screen time a day, while under-twos should not be watching screens alone, new government guidance says.

This is the  headline on the BBC Family news section published on 26th March 2026.

It advises parents to steer clear of fast-paced videos and use screens together where possible. The guidance also suggests "screen swaps" - taking screens away to read stories together or playing simple games at mealtimes.

We all know how 'useful' it may be to have a screen handy to occupy a young child when we have other things to do but there are clearly downsides to unlimited screen time. The use of digital entertainment is a wholly passive process. Kids colouring, drawing, making things playing games with each other and many other activities that create the rounded personality are missing if the diet is limited to screen time of gaming.

Parents need to create a digital plan for their families. We know that young children live in a hi-tech world and they need to become familiar with it. This doesnt mean total uncontolled access to devices. There are screen time controls for all devices which remove the need to direct intervetion but create a timetable of access which children soon become familier with. Make the restrictions the norm and it will become part of their daily activities.

Read the ful story here. 

Midlands parents asked 'are your kids safe' as police warn of new risk online Source: Birmingham Live

 

 

Birmingham Live News reports that Police have issued a warning to parents over the online dangers facing their children every day, from cyber bullying to sexual exploitation.

And here in 2026, AI is only worsening the issues by introducing "content based on their searches," West Mercia Police said.

We are aware of the power of AI and that it can be used in very productive ways by professionals and children but it also has the power to carry out searches that would take hours if you were to undertake them on your own. As its learning algorithms improve this will become and even more  powerful tool.

The police report  advises that parents need to ensure that Safety settings are in place, including parental controls on all devices, browsers, and Apps to "filter out inappropriate material," the force advised.  It also advises that "Set strong privacy settings to make sure personal information is only visible to trusted individuals i.e. “Friends only”. The police also recommends introducing your child to smartphones and other devices gradually in a monitored way before giving them fuller access.

Our Cybertrust Internet Monitoring Project aims to support parents to put such controls in place and to make best use of them within the family.  

  

 

Tech companies have treated children as data to be mined for far too long - our plan ensures this will never happen again Source: LBC News

 This article by Munira Wilson, Spokesperson for Education, Children and Families sets out the political views of the LD party but it also describes their approach to issues surrounding social media, online content and age appropriateness of online material.

We may or may not agree with their approach but clearly the issue of online safety of children is unlikely to fade away. 

The headline does raise and major issue. The data mining undertaken by social media companies is potentially, if not more, dangerous then the content itself. If these companies have their own policical agenda (we know they do), and they recognise the importance to them of capturing users while they are young we could see the emergence of the Utopian Ministry of Truth. They become influencers rather than supporters and it is their agenda they are pushing, whatever that might be.

Manipulating young minds, through the use of responsive algorithms, is a crime worth of the name. How we deal with such threats is important. We need our young people to grow and become fully functional in their technhogically rich communities. Banning access or preventing them access to the technology may well make them more vulnerable in the long run.

Open non-partisan political debate about these issues is vital if we are to stear our children to understand the world aound them.

Read he full article here.