Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether his Department plans to strengthen age verification methods on social media platforms to protect children from having access to harmful content.

The government is committing to doing what is necessary to protect children online. The Online Safety Act requires in-scope services to use highly effective age assurance to prevent children from encountering specific types of harmful content. On 16 January Ofcom published its finalised guidance on how they expect services to introduce highly effective age assurance to meet this duty.

We expect Ofcom’s finalised Children’s Safety Codes to be laid before parliament in April 2025 and following the parliamentary process the child safety duties should be in effect by summer 2025

Ofcom are required to produce and publish a report on in-scope services’ use of age assurance solutions within eighteen months of these duties coming into force.