Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to ensuring that the Online Safety Bill empowers Ofcom to take action against any online services publishing illegal pornography, regardless of whether that content is user-generated or not.

The Online Safety Bill has been designed to bring into scope services which pose the greatest risk of harm to users, and where there is a gap in existing policy responses. Hosting, sharing and discovery of user-generated content give rise to a range of online harms and the Bill is therefore focused on user-to-user services which facilitate this harm. Search services are also in scope as they play a significant role in enabling individuals to access harmful content online.

User-to-user and search services will be required to implement systems and processes to minimise the uploading and sharing of priority illegal content on their services. This includes priority offences relating to sexual images, for example, revenge pornography and extreme pornography. Priority offences reflect the most serious and prevalent illegal content and activity, against which companies must take proactive measures.

Publishers of online content are already directly liable for offences which relate to the possession or distribution of illegal material such as extreme pornography. The criminal law is therefore the most appropriate mechanism for dealing with these providers rather than a regulatory regime, as it is not appropriate for Ofcom to duplicate the role of law enforcement.

The Online Safety Bill will also address children’s access to legal pornography through the Bill. It will cover all online sites that offer pornography, including commercial pornography sites, social media, video sharing platforms, forums and search engines. These services will need to prevent children accessing pornography or face enforcement action. This includes content classified as extreme pornography or pornographic content which has been refused a classification by the British Board of Film Classification.